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COPYRIGHT DEPOSIT. 






The 
DALTON LABOEATORY PLAN 



BY THE SAME AUTHOR 



New Schools for Old 

The Regeneration of the Porter 
School 



With Professor John Dewey 
Schools of To-morrow 



With Emily Child and Beardsley 

RUML 

Methods and Results of Testing 
School Children 

Manual of Tests Used by the Psy- 
chological Survey in the Public 
Schools of New York City, 
Including Social and Physical 
Studies of the Children Tested. 



E. P. BUTTON & COMPANY 



^ 



The 
DALTON LABORATOEY PLAN 



BY 

EVELYN DEWEY 

AuTHOH OP "New Schools fob Old," etc. 




NEW YORK 
E. P. BUTTON & CO. 

681 Fifth Avenue 



Copyright 1922, by 
E. P. DUTTON & COMPANY 



All Rights Reserved 






Printed in the United States of America 

FkB -3 1922 
0n!.A553741 



PEEFACE 

This book is an attempt to answer the ques- 
tions of teachers and schools about the Dalton 
Laboratory Plan. The plan is new. It has been 
in operation in one school for eighteen months 
and in two others for a little over one year. 
Therefore, it is not possible to present it as a 
tested and proved ^^ system/' or to say that it 
must be arranged in such and such a fashion. It 
is better that it should be so ; for education will 
never be static. It must develop and change 
with the increase of human knowledge and the 
changes in society. As long as man develops, 
his education must develop. 

Miss Parkhurst has suggested an arrange- 
ment of the school building and program that 
iseems to give children some of the things they 
need to grow up successful adults in the world 
of to-day. Though she has a strong personal 
bias on the curriculum, the plan itself does not 
dictate what facts or subjects children must 
study. It promotes a natural and thorough way 
of studying, a way that is in harmony with our 



vi PREFACE 

present knowledge of psychology, and that, 
therefore, tends to develop intelligent habits. 
The growth of character is the foundation of 
education. The Dalton Laboratory Plan is an 
experiment in an environment that permits 
character development. The particular school 
is the inheritance. 

The exchange of information between 
teachers and schools is essential for the im- 
provement of both the environment and the in- 
heritance. Each teacher makes discoveries as 
she meets her problems. These discoveries need 
to be shared in order to test and establish them 
by use. Miss Parkhurst offers a new concep- 
tion of school organization that has appealed 
to many schools as a better way. It needs an 
open-minded reception from all schools and 
teachers, so that children may have the benefit 
of whatever it can contribute and so that it 
may be tested, altered and refined into a more 
and more useful and growing tool. 

The theme of the book follows as closely as 
possible Miss Parkhurst 's conception of the 
plan. We have been in constant consultation as 
to facts and have freely exchanged opinions as 
to theories. We have not always agreed about 



PREFACE vii 

the theories. The writer is responsible for the 
educational generalizations and, therefore, any 
discrepancies and disagreements should be laid 
at her door. 

Thanks are due to Miss Eosa Bassett, head- 
mistress of the Streatham County Secondary 
School, London, England, and to her teachers 
and pupils for the history of the plan in their 
school, and to Mr. Ernest Jackman for infor- 
mation about the Dalton High School in Massa- 
chusetts. Portions of the last chapter first ap- 
peared in The Nation of May 4th, 1921, and are 
reprinted with its consent. 

E. D. 

New York City, December, 1921. 



CONTENTS 

CHAPTER PAGE 

I. The Plan 1 

II. The Laboratory 22 

III. The Assignments 45 

IV. A Dalton High School 64 

V. The Streatham County Secondary 

School 93 

VI. Opinions of Teachers and Pupils 108 

VII. The Children's University School 132 

VIII. The Need for an Improved Education, . 155 



The 
DALTON LABORATOEY PLAN 



THE DALTON LABORATORY 
PLAN 



CHAPTER I 

The Plan 

The Dalton Laboratory Plan was developed 
in an attempt to get a school organization that 
would meet the needs of modern education 
under public school conditions. Miss Helen 
Parkhurst, the originator of the plan, conceives 
of schools as sociological laboratories where 
community life and community situations pre- 
vail. The children are the experimenters. The 
instructors are observers, who stand ready to 
serve the community as their special talents are 
needed. As observers, they study the children 
to find out what environment will best meet the 
immediate educational needs. As specialists, 



2 THE DALTON LABORATORY PLAN 

their function is to give technique, to point the 
way to the acquisition of information, and to 
maintain intellectual and technical standards. 
A new and radically different school organiza- 
tion has been built up on this basis. The very 
set-up of the school program enlists the coop- 
eration of the children. By giving them real 
jobs, their wills become an active force in the 
learning process. 

A pupil in a Dalton school said, ^^I like this 
school because each child has ample time to do 
his work. In other schools, when you go into 
arithmetic, you have to do arithmetic for half 
an hour and you have to do so much that you 
get mixed up. Here, if you begin to get tired 
and can't make your mind work right on one 
thing, you can go into another room and forget 
all about the first thing, so you don't get mud- 
dled up. Later, you can do the arithmetic. I 
like it, too, because you can go on and do your 
work and not be held back by children who are 
slower.'' 

It may be true that children do not know 
what things are good for them, but it is equally 
true that left to themselves they know the ways 
that are good for them. If teachers watch 



THE PLAN 3 

children at play or at work out of school, they 
can observe the conditions for efficient learning. 
They will find very little in common between 
their class-rooms with bells, fixed recitation 
periods, and endless lectures, and the pnpiPs 
own methods. 

Out of school, a child knows what he is going 
to do. Whether it is a block tower or a stamp 
collection, the goal is there before the work is 
started. In the class-room, there is often no 
attempt to let the pupils in on the task at hand. 
More lessons begin with ^^ Class take down these 
examples,'' or ^^Take out your histories, turn to 
page 44, Mary begin at the second paragraph,'' 
than with even such a general statement as ^^ We 
will talk about the geography of Chile today. '* 
Of course, the class knows that the history or 
reading period has arrived. But the thread of 
a task is easily lost when it is done under arbi- 
trary conditions. Without this thread, it is 
largely a matter of chance whether a pupil gets 
any understanding or control of the material 
presented as a ^ ^subject.'' 

Playing or working at home, each child ad- 
justs his task to his natural rate of speed for 
working. He does a thing step by step without 



4 THE DALTON LABORATORY PLAN 

obvious spurts of haste or moments of waiting. 
In school, the speed of a class lesson is fixed 
by the teacher. It is aimed to fit the average 
ability of the class. But there is not a single 
individual exactly at average. Each child has 
his own rate of working, and the majority of 
the class approximate the average rate. Yet 
each one of these children is expected to follow 
every direction the instant it is given. The re- 
sult is, of course, that the slower pupils hit only 
the high spots; fix their attention on keeping 
up; get confused and muddled and try to re- 
member enough words so they can get through 
the lesson. It is no happier for the children 
who work rapidly. They are through before a 
new direction is given, but they have to wait for 
the teacher. Their minds wander. They have 
just started on an interesting train of thought. 
The new direction comes, and they are jerked 
back to the lesson for another moment's atten- 
tion. They grasp the point and are again hung 
up. For both extremes there is a constant in- 
terruption of interest and attention in order to 
adjust to the class that tends to kill initiative. 
Even the pupils nearer the average are not free 



THE PLAN 5 

to follow their natural rate, but must strain or 
be bored in order to conform exactly. 

In free activity, a child works until he is 
through, or until he is tired and finds his atten- 
tion wandering or his mind becoming confused. 
In either case, he has grasped what he has done 
and it has the value of a completed experience. 
In the class-room, the opportunity to work by 
orderly stages is dependent on the clock and the 
skill of the teacher. Perhaps the class has been 
roused to a high pitch of interest and mental 
alertness; perhaps they are just beginning to 
understand some difficult new material. Sud- 
denly the bell rings. Books must be shut. The 
lesson is over, and excited or tired minds are 
jerked to a new subject. 

The constant interruptions to natural and or- 
derly mental processes imposed by the organi- 
zation of the school program account for the 
inadequacies of school education as much as 
shortcomings in curricula. The mind is a ma- 
chine that works continuously and at its own 
rate. It can not stand constant overspeeding 
or frequent periods of blankness without re- 
volting. Every teacher feels sometimes that 
she would like to shake her class into life and 



6 THE DALTON LABORATORY PLAN 

response. They have been shaken so constantly 
that the electric shocks of bells, rapid-fire 
questions, competition and devices fail to 
spur them to even the usual service. They let 
their minds drift, expecting the teacher to guide 
them in and out of the labyrinths of the daily 
program with the minimum of cooperation on 
their part. Is it any wonder that when we dis- 
count effort and interest, school ceases to be- 
come a developing process and the pupil gathers 
only the moss of information that comes with 
passivity? The Dalton Laboratory Plan offers 
a school machinery without these features. 
It will work with large classes and meager 
budgets. 

Miss Parkhurst says, ^'We have been viewing 
things through the wrong end of the telescope. 
What should be taught, or how this ought to be 
ushered in, should not be the most important 
problem in school improvement. We want 
teachers with original ways sufficient to answer 
the needs of each individual. Let us free them 
from the yoke of method and system, and make 
it possible for them to use their own good judg- 
ment." This freeing process is the essential 
contribution of the plan. 



THE PLAN 7 

The plan suggests a simple and economical 
reorganization of school machinery that per- 
mits the school to function as a community. It 
can be used as an efficiency measure without 
making changes in the curriculum, or as the 
first step in the development of a new basis for 
elementary and secondary education. The plan 
does not suggest a curriculum — ^it offers a way 
by which school life can function as real life 
functions in a community. School work is done 
in such a way and under such conditions that 
groups and individuals are brought into con- 
stant inter-action, and it is impossible for any 
one to live independently of others. The plan 
has certain tangible pedagogic advantages for 
public schools with their big classes and fixed 
curricula. With them, it may be looked upon as 
an efficiency measure for children, the learners. 
f The plan preserves grouping by grades. The 
grading may be done in any way fitted to meet 
the needs of the particular school. But it does 
away with most of the drawbacks of grading. 
Pupils work at their own rate of speed. They 
may work fast in some subjects and more slowly 
in others, and still remain with their group. The 
quick pupil can go more thoroughly into sub- 



8 THE DALTON LABORATORY PLAN 

jects that interest him, looking up special topics 
or doing supplementary reading. The slow 
child can confine himself to the essentials of a 
subject and work on them until they are thor- 
oughly mastered. Children with marked bents 
can save time by hard work. This time can be 
spent in the subject laboratory where there is 
the equipment that feeds their particular in- 
terest. A child can remain a member of his 
appropriate age group and do some of his les- 
sons with older and some with younger groups. 
But the plan does more than preserve the ad- 
vantages of individual study and subject pro- 
motion. It requires a method of study that calls 
forth the kind of intellectual and moral habits 
that are so necessary for the development of 
an intelligent, responsible and successful citi- 
zen. 

The reorganization plan worked out by Miss 
Parkhurst is adapted to eight grades, begin- 
ning with the fourth grade or its equivalent. 
Children would begin to work under the plan 
when they have finished the first three years of 
school and would continue working under it 
until they enter a college or university. Since 
it makes no demand on the curriculum, it can 



THE PLAN 9 

be used for schools divided into intermediate 
grades, and junior and senior secondary depart- 
ments or to schools with a four-year secondary 
course. 

The plan preserves grades for convenience in 
handling the children, but instead of class- 
rooms and one seat for each pupil there are sub- 
ject laboratories. One or more rooms are as- 
signed for each subject that is taught in the 
school. This specializing starts in the fourth 
grade instead of in the secondary department 
as in most schools at present. Instead of keep- 
ing the teacher a ^^jack of all trades,'^ each be- 
comes a specialist in charge of one of these 
laboratories. In the youngest grades, where 
there are not now subject teachers, the grade 
teachers can be assigned to subjects on the 
basis of their interests and special aptitudes. 
In the usual elementary school, the grade 
teacher now has to teach physical culture, hand 
work and art, regardless of her interest or 
talent. Such an arrangement necessarily in- 
volves a waste of time. Under the Dalton Plan, 
grade teachers with special aptitudes can be 
assigned to laboratories where they give the 



10 THE DALTON LABORATORY PLAN 

pupils of all grades the benefit of their interest 
in a particular subject. 

Like all macliinery for instruction, the' 
smaller the pupil unit per teacher the more ef- 
ficient the teaching. At the same time, the plan 
will function with the units that are found in 
the usual large public school. A secondary 
school that is using the plan in England has 
a unit of about one hundred and ten pupils per 
teacher. Miss Parkhurst believes that a teacher 
can meet two hundred pupils as well as she can 
handle that same number in the usual class 
periods. In large schools there may be a num- 
ber of laboratories for each subject; each as- 
signed to one teacher who devotes her time to 
certain grades. Instead of having one labora- 
tory for all the work in mathematics, there will 
be one for each mathematics teacher. Each will 
be used by the pupils of the grades she is in 
the habit of teaching. If she finds the attend- 
ance so uneven as to interfere with the pupils' 
work, she can fix certain hours for helping cer- 
tain classes. In this way, she will not have to 
deal with any more children at one time than 
she does at present. 

Having the pupils go to special rooms for 



THE PLAN 11 

each subject permits economy in equipment. In 
geography, for instance, instead of maps, 
globes, atlases and reference books for each 
grade, one set of such material is installed in 
each geography laboratory. Since the teacher 
is in this laboratory during the part of the 
school day set aside as ^ laboratory time,'' 
material is available at any minute. The 
school library can be made more useful 
than it often is. Each laboratory will have a 
shelf of books where volumes that are commonly 
used for special reference and supplementary 
readings, as well as those that may stimulate 
the children to further research, are kept. Any 
book that a teacher or pupil wants is thus avail- 
able at a moment's notice. 

Many educators believe that pupils suffer 
from too frequent changes of teachers. Under 
the Dalton Plan, a child will have the same 
teacher in the same subject year after year. His 
first year he must adjust to a different person- 
ality for each subject. After that, his work 
may change from year to year, but he wiU be 
dealing with the same teachers. 

Each pupil has his work of the school year 
broken up into contract jobs. There are as 



12 THE DALTON LABORATORY PLAN 

many contracts as there are months in the 
school year. These consist of outlines or as- 
signments of the work that are posted for each 
grade in each subject at the beginning of the 
month. The child reads these assignments and 
sees his work for a month, hence the word con- 
tract assignment or contract job. Seeing what 
he is to do, he accepts the contract and agrees to 
accomplish it. The actual working of this plan 
can best be illustrated by specific example. 
Horace Marshall is a pupil in the fifth grade 

in a Dalton public school in the city of . 

School hours are from 8:45 A. M. to 4:00 P. 
M., with an intermission from 1 :00 to 2 :00 P. M. 
From 8:45 A. M. to 12:00 noon is considered 
free time. It belongs wholly to the pupil and it 
is his responsibility to organize it to suit his 
needs. The half hour between 12 :00 and 12 :30 
is taken up with pupil assembly, special work, 
or committee meetings. During this time, the 
academic instructors meet for faculty confer- 
ence. The following half hour is devoted to 
group conferences. All the pupils of a grade 
report to an academic instructor at this time, 
but they report to a different teacher each day, 
so that there is a weekly report for each grade 



THE PLAN 13 

in each subject. The remainder of the day may 
be used for work in art, manual training, recre- 
ation or athletics, any work which can be readily 
handled in grade groups. 

The school year is ten months. Horace 
studies five academic subjects, — ^history, mathe- 
matics, geography, English literature and some 
form of science. Therefore, Horace has five 
contract jobs a month, or fifty during the school 
year. Besides this, he will have a certain 
amount of work in special subjects — gymna- 
sium, carpentry or art. As far as the school 
staff permits, this work should also be man- 
aged by contract jobs in subject laboratories. 
Where such instructors are on part time only, 
these subjects may be conveniently handled in 
groups in the afternoon, or at the close of the 
morning's socialized time. Horace works in all 
of these subject laboratories instead of in one 
fifth-grade room. He has a locker for his per- 
sonal school belongings instead of a desk. His 
group is under the special care of some one 
teacher, and will meet in her laboratory for a 
short period each day, usually at the beginning 
of the morning. Horace's advisor talks over 
class plans and problems with the children, 



14 THE DALTON LARORATORY PLAN 

maki^s aiinonnoomonls aiul siii;*i!:ostioiis to help 
groups and iiulividiials in i)lanning Ihoir day's 
work. TluMi lloraco and his class-mates got out 
tluMT assignnuMit cards. On (lu^so cards, they 
havi^ cop'uHl in derail (h(^ work oT Uu^ monthly 
contract in each subject. 

TluM'c^ is no tinu^ sch(Hlul(\ no bell to sununou 
lloraci^ from ont^ room to another. lie deter- 
mini^s to work on his j;'(M>graphy this morning 
and so go(\s to ilu^ g(H)gra|)hy laboratory. His 
Avork may he reading nM'iM'cMices, qu(\^tions to be 
answ(M-(Hl, maps to bi^ tlrawn or other pertinent 
matliM*. ll(^ (»arri(vs on liis work indi^pendently, 
(Mil(M'ing and K\Mving {\\c room wluMi and as ho 
ph^asi^s. 'Vho time h(^ sp(Muls tluM'i^ is (h^ter- 
miniHi enlin^ly by his inl(M-(^st-span and his fa- 
ligm\ If otluM* liflh-gradi^ l)upils are in the 
laboratory al tlu^ sanu^ (inu^ lu^ may join tliem. 
^Vhc grouj) is allowinl (o talk, lu^lj) each olh(M\ 
e\ehang(^ books and i)ap(M*s, in fact (hey sliould 
be (MieonragiHl to work together. As they work, 
th(\v maki^ notes on questions they can not an- 
swtM' among th(Mnst^h'(\s or on any j)oint wIumu^ 
the tc^achor's advict^ is ntHHUnl. She is in the 
laboratory during tlu^ whoh^ morning helping 
groups or individuals, so iioruce is iree to go 



THE PLAN 13 

to her as lio requires assistance. Or slie may 
call his group to her to see what they are doing, 
discuss difficult questions or make suggestions 
about bett(H- ways of working. 

Before leaving the laboratory, Horace indi- 
cates on the instructor's subjc^ct graph the 
amount of work completed. If he is in any 
doubt as to the amount covered, h(^ may ask Iho 
instructor to assist him in this. lie also indi- 
cates tlio amount \w has done by a lini^ on his 
own contract card. If he leaves before the end 
of the free laboratory work time, he will select 
anoth(»r subject, go to that laboratory and work 
there as he did in the geography room. 

If Miss Parkhurst's program is followed 
exactly, Horace will have an hour at the end of 
the morning for group work witli his own grades 
Th(^ first part of this he will spcvnd in ass(*ml)ly, 
in work for the school activities he is intc^rc^stinl 
in, or in having a special lesson, or giving a 
group report with all or part of his grade. The 
last half hour he spends in a regular form or 
group meeting. Since he has only one of thes(^ a 
week in c^acli subject, it will not pass as the* daily 
recitation does. Miss Parkhurst calls this 
group work, *^ class meetings or conferences'' in 



16 THE DALTON LABORATORY PLAN 

order to distinguish it from the ordinary reci- 
tation or oral lesson period. Enough time 
should be given class conferences to enable the 
teacher to present things relating to the subject 
outside the pupil's experience, things impos- 
sible for him to discover with his limited time 
and equipment ; to guide real discussions of the 
subject by the pupils and to review and round 
up the assignment. 

In the afternoon, Horace's grade will prob- 
ably have a more regular time-table. Gymna- 
sium, recreation, music and certain kinds of shop 
work, notably cooking, depend upon organized 
groups for their value and their success. Part 
of the afternoon may be spent on a time-table 
and part in free study for art and carpentry, 
or all of it may be given over to classes and time 
found for more than one recitation a week in 
the academic subjects. Recitations in Ameri- 
can schools correspond to what are known as 
oral lessons in English schools. 

One of the advantages of the plan is that 
each school can adopt the time-table best suited 
to its needs. The one essential is that enough 
time be saved for free study to enable the pu- 
pils to work on contracts instead of daily les- 



THE PLAN 17 

Bons, and to work at their own rate of speed. 
Whether pupils have home work to do besides 
the time put in in subject laboratories will de- 
pend on the length of the school day and the 
proportion of the day given to free study and 
to classes. In Horace ^s all-day school, the chil- 
dren ought to get practically all their work done 
in school. In the English school that will be 
described later, pupils have practically as much 
to do at home as they did under the old plan. 
When the laboratory time is not long enough to 
do aU the work required in the contract, some 
time should be spent in planning with the pupils. 
The first attack on new problems, reference 
work, map drawing, anything that is likely to 
prove difficult or that requires the use of appar- 
atus and equipment should be done in school, 
and literature, essays and drill work where the 
principles have been mastered should be saved 
for home study. 

The laboratory plan has given its pupils a 
definite advantage in mental and social habits 
where it has been tried. Free study time has 
made it possible for children to adjust their 
work to their own rate of speed. This elim- 
inates idleness for the quick child and over- 



18 THE DALTON LABORATORY PLAN 

strain and jumping for the slow child. It per- 
mits continuity of interest and effort by minim- 
izing artificial interruptions. But above all, it 
permits children to learn by the scientific 
method, to investigate and discover for them- 
selves. 

Pupils differ in their likes and dislikes of 
subjects. The time needed for mastering a sub- 
ject is dependent upon the interest the pupil 
feels in it — the greater the interest, the less the 
time required. Subject antipathies are usually 
identical with subject weaknesses. Eeadjust- 
ment of the time schedule permits individual 
pupils to devote more time to their particular 
obstacles with the result that antipathies are 
eliminated. 

It is well known that pupils often undervalue 
the time of their instructor. Their own time, 
however, is generally rated mth some accuracy. 
That it can be utilized with maximum efficiency 
under the Dalton Plan is shown in the arrange- 
ment of the school day described above. 

The usual class-room organization, in spite 
of the number of children working together, has 
few of the characteristics of group work as 
carried on outside the school-room. Classes are 



THE PLAN 19 

too large. Individual differences, ability and 
interest-span are too varied to enable the class 
to function as an entity. Small groups that 
come together voluntarily in the subject labor- 
atory can work creatively. Interest in the im- 
mediate problem has drawn individuals to- 
gether. Each is anxious to contribute and to 
listen. Since the study that preceded this dis- 
cussion was individual, each has an individual 
point of view and special information. Putting 
all this together, the result is a more thorough, 
finished, and child-like piece of work than is 
possible under a system of recitations. 

Miss Parkhurst feels that different subject la- 
boratories permit the children to enjoy a larger 
world. In any one laboratory the work paral- 
lels the life of a real community. The children 
deal with each other, they share experiences and 
communicate them to others. There is a com- 
mon interest in the study in each laboratory, a 
thing impossible in a room where several sub- 
jects are being taught. The atmosphere of the 
laboratory eliminates to a considerable degree, 
if not entirely, the ^ ^ drive ^' which is often evi- 
dent in a class-room. Besides the intermingling 
within the grade referred to above, there is, of 



20 THE DALTON LABORATORY PLAN 

course, intercourse with other groups. Older 
children are able to help younger with work and 
assignments they have already been over. 
Younger pupils read the assignments and see 
children working in grades beyond their own. 
The spirit of mutual respect and responsibility 
that arises from friendly pupil-teacher rela- 
tions among children is recognized. While pu- 
pils do not do identical work, the relationship 
between advanced science and elementary 
science is closer than that between different 
subjects in the same grade. Experiments in 
geography do not differ in kind, only in degree. 
This similarity tends not to distraction, but to 
positive helpfulness. There is a legitimate dis- 
order in a carpentry shop, which would be dis- 
turbing to the atmosphere of an English labora- 
tory. If a child is working on a problem in 
English which involves carpentry. Miss Park- 
hurst believes it is better for him to decide to 
go into the carpentry shop. This is of real 
benefit in two ways. It definitely classifies his 
knowledge, and it brings to him a clearer under- 
standing of the interrelation of his subjects. 
Its effect upon his nervous organism is also 
noticeable. Freedom to move about produces a 



THE PLAN 21 

certain relaxation which releases energy for 
other purposes. 

Each individual and each group learns that 
privileges may not be enjoyed without a corre- 
sponding responsibility. It is not what they do, 
so much as whether or not they feel each piece 
of work as their own responsibility. 

The relation of teacher and pupil is trans- 
formed. Instead of the ^4ock-step'' rule, a nat- 
ural contact is established. A respect without 
fear, a joy in daily living, a willingness to do 
hard work — all these and more have been ob- 
served in the schools where the plan has been 
tried. 



CHAPTER II 

The Laboratory 

The reorganization of a school on the Dalton 
Plan will change conditions for study. A flex- 
ible attitude towards these changes is necessary 
if the plan is to succeed. The teacher can no 
longer judge each pupil on the basis of the 
amount they learn in comparison with the other 
members of the class. Where pupils are study- 
ing individually, they must be judged individu- 
ally. The teacher must appraise the contract 
as a whole. She cannot divide it into daily 
portions each to be marked good or bad. Until 
it is complete, her function is not to grade, but 
to give expert assistance and advice, so that 
subject matter is mastered and general prog- 
ress is made according to the ability of the 
individual child. At the same time, there must 
be some daily check on the amount of work a 
pupil is doing. This is as essential for him as 

22 



THE LABORATORY 23 

for his teacher. Each child is working on at 
least five assignments at a time. He must be 
able to know how far he has progressed with 
each. To give him the moral advantages that 
come from individual study, some device must 
be used by which he can check his own progress. 

Miss Parkhurst has developed a system of 
record keeping for teachers and pupils that has 
worked efficiently in several American schools. 
A bulletin board hangs on the wall of each 
laboratory. On this the teacher posts the 
month's contract in outline for each grade and 
the weekly contract, in such form that the av- 
erage pupil can take it and go ahead with his 
work. Each pupil has a contract card. There 
are different colors for different grades, so that 
an individual is easily placed in the laboratory. 

The card is divided into vertical columns, one 
for each subject the pupil is studying. It is 
ruled in four rows, each indicating an amount 
corresponding to a week^s work on the contract, 
i.e., a square on the card then represents one 
week's work in a subject. These squares are 
subdivided into five rows, each row represent- 
ing one day's work in the subject. Our fifth- 
grade pupil starts a new month of work by go- 



24 THE DALTON LABORATORY PLAN 

ing to his geography room. He copies the out- 
line of the month's assignment on the back of 
his card. He studies the week's assignment 
until he understands it, and determines what his 
first step should be. He may become absorbed 
in his work and remain in the geography labor- 
atory for several hours. He has, of course, 
done more than one-fifth of the week's assign- 
ment in geography before he leaves. When he 
is ready to leave, he goes over what he has done 
and decides that he has finished say, three-fifths 
of the assignment. In the geography column on 
his card, he will draw a vertical line which 
covers the first three subdivisions of the square 
for the first week. In the next subject labora- 
tory he goes to, he will follow the same proce- 
dure, crossing off the proportion of the week's 
work that he accomplishes in each subject. In 
order to keep track of which records are made 
each day, the number 1, 2 or 3, etc., correspond- 
ing to the day of the week is written on each 
day's line. 

When the expression ^^time for a contract'* 
is used, it should be noted that this does not 
mean so many minutes allowed for each day's 
work. It means the amount of work done at 



THE LABORATORY 25 

any one time on the week^s assignment on the 
basis of a rough division of that assignment 
into five parts. 

A pupil is not allowed to start a new contract 
in any one subject until he has finished all the 
subjects of the contract of the month before. 
This means that he must plan his distribution 
of time. A heedless child who follows his im- 
pulses may easily find the first month or two of 
a free program difficult. He will go to the lab- 
oratory of the subject which interests him most 
or which he finds easiest. Those portions of his 
contracts finished, he finds his difficult subjects 
still before him. Time will go slowly. He will 
be doubly conscious of his difficulties and he 
may spend more time than he ought in the shops 
or in reading in the library. The end of the 
month arrives and the rest of his class are start- 
ing interesting new assignments. He can not 
go on, because his difficult subject is not fin- 
ished. With a real effort he gets down to work 
and finally completes the contract to the 
teacher ^s satisfaction. The next month he re- 
members his experience and plans his time bet- 
ter. He will start his history early in the 
month, do a little of it each day, and save some 



26 THE DALTON LABORATORY PLAN 

of the easy or more interesting work to give 
him mental rest and stimulation all through the 
month. Gradually, he will work out an arrange- 
ment of his time that is coordinated with his 
mental habits. 

Rarely a pupil will be found whose habits 
and sense of responsibility are so poor that he 
Avill fail completely in organizing his time to 
complete his contracts. For such a pupil, it is 
a simple matter to make a program that re- 
quires him to report in certain laboratories at 
certain periods. Seeing his fellow-pupils work- 
ing independently, the normal child will be 
stimulated to prove to his teachers that such 
special supervision is unnecessary, and after a 
few months, during which his program is 
adapted to his progress, he will be able to work 
as the others do. But this device should not be 
used, unless it seems necessary. 

The lessons learned in having to plan his 
own time are as necessary to a child's education 
as the multiplication table or a legible hand- 
writing. Ability to fit a definite job into a 
definite time, to plan a coming day, and to im- 
prove in the ability to organize one's work are 
large factors in adult success. Like all habits, 



THE LABORATORY 27 

they can not be established without practice. 
Miss Parkhurst believes that a child of nine or 
ten has enough experience to be ready to take 
the responsibility for his own school life to this 
extent. Modern education lays emphasis on the 
necessity for training that develops initiative, 
organizing ability, resourcefulness and critical 
judgment. The average class-room methods 
furnish comparatively few opportunities for the 
exercise of these qualities. In the old-fashioned 
class, they had almost no scope. Every school 
that preserves the single text-book, the daily 
lesson and recitations to measure information 
must rely on more or less artificial devices to 
develop them. Where pupils are free to organ- 
ize their own time, these qualities can func- 
tion as they do in real life. No matter how 
rigid the standards or how routine the task 
in life outside of school, responsibility for both 
accomplishment and method is on the indi- 
vidual. In a Dalton school, each pupil works 
and plays as a self-directed, self-disciplined in- 
dividual, as he must do outside of school. The 
record cards are necessary to enable the inex- 
perienced person to keep track of his work. 
They give him a picture of his work in such a 



28 THE DALTON LABORATORY PLAN 

concrete form that he can check, plan and eval- 
uate from day to day and from month to month. 

The contract card reproduced here shows the 
way one pupil planned his assignments for a 
month. 

A record-keeping device is also necessary for 
the teacher in charge of each laboratory. The 
teacher should guard against all temptation to 
require pupils to write out and hand in every 
step in their contract. Too much writing means 
that the child is not putting enough time on his 
studying. It becomes a burden to the pupil and 
defeats the chief advantage of the plan in tak- 
ing away his self-reliance. The teacher should 
also recognize that written work is not a test of 
daily progress in lessons. It is rather an invi- 
tation to the pupil to sit down with his text-book 
and a piece of paper and transcribe notes to 
hand in later as he reads. It can become the 
emptiest of cramming processes. Miss Park- 
hurst's suggestion is a laboratory form graph 
from which the teacher can tell at any moment 
just how much of a contract each pupil has 
filled. A chart for each grade that is using the 
laboratory is hung on the wall. There are ver- 
tical columns for each week's assignment with 



THE LABORATORY 



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30 THE DALTON LABORATORY PLAN 

sub-divisions for each day. The children in a 
grade are listed in the left margin. Each pupil 
makes a horizontal line showing the amount he 
has accomplished, whenever he leaves the room. 
If the pupil is not sure what portion of the 
week's work he has done during his stay in the 
laboratory, he can consult the teacher. It is 
usually not necessary to indicate on the week's 
posted assignment the amount that constitutes 
a day's work. Teachers and pupils divide a 
piece of work in the same way, and the child's 
instinct is to finish one of these divisions rather 
than to keep his mind on the amount to be done 
each day. It is a simple matter to indicate the 
amount of time that would normally be neces- 
sary for each portion for the first few weeks 
under the plan. 

From this graph any teacher can see at a 
glance just how much each pupil has done on 
a contract in any particular subject. She can 
tell which children have reached about the same 
point in their work. She can call this group 
together for help and discussion and suggest 
that they finish the contract, or do a certain 
portion of it working together. The possibil- 
ity of grouping children from a glance at the 



THE LABORATORY 



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32 THE DALTON LABORATORY PLAN 

chart is one of the chief advantages of this type 
of record. With individual study, the teacher 
must take and make every opportunity to stim- 
ulate group work. This not only economizes 
her time by allowing her to give help to a num- 
ber of children at a time, but it enables the 
children to get the benefits of social studying 
and learning. The laboratory should not be 
a place where children sit perfectly quiet. The 
teacher need not be afraid pupils will copy each 
other's work. The greater interest that comes 
from putting the responsibility for their own 
work on the children minimizes this danger. 
Each child also develops his own way of work- 
ing and arranging his material, the one best 
suited to his habits and ability, so that copying 
becomes a difficult matter. When it does go on, 
it can be as easily detected as it is under the 
conventional methods of home-work assign- 
ment. 

By watching the graph, the teacher can tell 
which children are ready to work together, and 
can take time to explain problems to those who 
are further behind with their contracts. It also 
enables her to give help where it is most needed 



THE LABORATORY 33 

instead of being monopolized by the most ad- 
vanced children whose ambition to finish a con- 
tract makes them eager for help. It also re- 
moves the temptation to keep track of pupils by 
requiring endless written work, and the neces- 
sity of keeping notes and asking questions in 
order to know how the work is progressing. If 
a teacher is in doubt as to an individual's abil- 
ity to judge his own work or his desire to do so 
honestly, she can require that pupil to speak to 
her before he marks his progress on the graph. 
If the responsibility for learning is not put con- 
fidently and whole-heartedly on the children, the 
teacher not only loses many of the pedagogic 
advantages of the plan ; she takes on herself an 
almost intolerable burden of detailed super- 
vision and note-taking. With children and 
teachers cooperating to keep the room graph 
accurately and conscientiously, the teacher need 
undertake no more record keeping and paper 
correcting than she does in the usual class-room. 
The third type of record kept in Miss Park- 
hurst 's school is the laboratory score. This is 
also a teachers' record kept by the children. It 
shows the amount .of time on the basis of the 



34 THE DALTON LABORATORY PLAN 

average that each child in a class takes to fill 
his contracts. On this graph, the names are 
entered at the bottom of vertical columns on 
a large sheet. Twenty horizontal rows repre- 
sent the twenty days' work in each contract. As 
his work is accepted by the teacher, the pnpil 
marks his progress in the assignment by draw- 
ing a vertical line covering the portion he has 
done, just as he does on the laboratory graph. 
If he works several hours in one morning and 
does the entire week's assignment to the 
teacher 's satisfaction, he draws a line through 
the first five squares in his column. If he com- 
pletes his contract in the first fifteen days of 
the school month, his line will have mounted to 
the top of his column. Here each column is di- 
vided into three spaces, one for the number of 
days required for the contract, one for the num- 
ber of days saved, and one for the number of 
days lost. The pupil then marks 15 in the first 
space and 5 in the second. If he had not fin- 
ished until the third day of the next month, he 
would put 23 in the first space and 3 in the 
third. 
At the end of the month, the teacher is able 



THE LABORATORY 



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36 THE DALTON LABORATORY PLAN 

to tell just how much time each pupil has saved 
or lost on that contract. Since this chart is not 
marked without her permission, she can judge 
her assignments from it, whether they are too 
hard or too easy for the class and just which 
children got ahead or fell behind. By compar- 
ing graphs from month to month, she can watch 
the progress of each pupil in his ability to plan 
his work and economize his time. The space 
for recording time saved serves as stimulus to 
children to work and arrange their time to the 
best advantage. It also shows them their rate 
of work, so that by comparing their records on 
the graphs for different subjects they can see 
where they can save time for their slow sub- 
jects. Since pupils are not ordinarily allowed 
to go ahead until they have finished their 
contracts in all their subjects, there is no 
danger of the charts encouraging poor or 
too rapid work, and for the same reason it does 
not promote any undesirable rivalry. From a 
comparison of the charts for different subjects, 
the teachers get an objective picture of the rate 
of work of each pupil. They can tell which 
children should be stimulated to undertake sup- 



THE LABORATORY 37 

plementary readings or extra topics, and which 
children habitually have slow mental processes 
and so should be spared unnecessary detail and 
helped to get control of the minimum funda- 
mentals of their studies. 

The chart also furnishes a convenient machin- 
ery for caring for the occasional pupil who for 
some external reasons is behind other children 
of his age in one or more of his subjects. As 
long as he does not fall behind in the subjects 
he is studying with his class, the rule against 
starting a new contract before all the old as- 
signments are finished can be set aside. If he 
is a year behind in arithmetic, be can be en- 
couraged to work hard and put in the time he 
saves on other contracts in the arithmetic lab- 
oratory. As soon as he finishes a contract in 
arithmetic, he should start on the next month ^s 
work. From the laboratory score, he can keep 
track of the number of days he saves, and 
measure his progress in overtaking the rest of 
his class. 

Two questions that naturally occur to the 
experienced teacher in studying the plan with 
a view to adopting it are the methods for check- 



38 THE DALTON LABORATORY PLAN 

ing the acquisition of subject matter and for 
preserving group work and social interaction. 
It probably would not be wise to attempt the 
plan with the usual curriculum for children un- 
der ten years old. By that time, the average 
pupil has acquired a working knowledge of the 
tools of learning, reading, w^riting and the four 
fundamental processes of arithmetic. Progress 
in reading comes easily with the pupils ' matur- 
ing interest. As they move from simple text- 
books and childish literature to those mth more 
complex language, their skill increases automat- 
ically, if they have formed correct reading 
habits in the beginning. This natural progress 
can easily be tested by the use of the standard 
reading scales in term examinations. These 
scales have the advantages of showing a child's 
skill in comparison with the standard for his 
age all over the country and of diagnosing 
the difficulty that is retarding a poor reader. 
For the majority of the class who progress nor- 
mally, there is a gain in time and in subject 
matter in eliminating mechanical drill, and let- 
ting this progress come from the reading that is 
done for geography, history or English. The 
poor reader's difficulty is detected by the test, 



THE LABORATORY 39 

and under the plan, the machinery already ex- 
ists for giving him the individual attention and 
drill necessary to overcome it. Granted a good 
start in the mechanics of writing, there is 
economy of time and greater interest in skill if 
writing lessons are not continued in the upper 
grades. High standards should be held before 
the children, and opportunities given them to 
check their performances with the standards 
for their age. They should be required to write 
legibly and quickly and prevented as far as 
possible from forming two handwritings, one 
for notes and one for the teacher. This can be 
done by discouraging copying. Experimenta- 
tion has shown this to be a more successful way 
to teach writing than penmanship drills. 

Investigation has proved that the best way to 
teach spelling is by repeated practice in words 
that are misspelled. This means individual 
study. The standard spelling lists and tests 
give the teacher the machinery for introducing 
this method in a form that is scientific and has 
been successfully used in many schools. We 
have already seen that arithmetic is particu- 
larly well suited to the free study plan. The 
standard tests enable the teacher to measure 



40 THE DALTON LABORATORY PLAN 

the individuaPs progress and to detect his weak- 
nesses. On the basis of their results, the 
teacher can assign individual drill in number 
combinations that have not become automatic. 
Such methods as graphs for spelling or multi- 
plication combinations, word books and book 
cards made by each child to keep track of his 
progress in the mechanics of learning have 
proved successful. All these methods require 
individual initiative in the pupil, and assign- 
ments and instruction from the teacher, and 
are therefore well adapted to the laboratory 
plan. These standard measurements do not fix 
the mathematics or reading curriculum of the 
schooL They are a device for getting an accu- 
rate measure of each individuaPs control of the 
tools of learning : the mechanical skills that en- 
able him to assimilate subject matter. 

Checks on the acquisition of subject matter in 
the rest of the curriculum should be worked out 
by each teacher on the basis of her method and 
the course of study. Schools where the plan is 
used have determined certain principles which 
should be followed. If the social features of 
the plan are not kept in mind, the laboratory 
method can degenerate into a speed device. Miss 



THE LABORATORY ' 41 

Parkhurst's purpose was never to arrange a 
school where the average pupil by isolated and 
continuous attention to detailed lesson sheets 
would be able to get through a fixed curricu- 
lum in a minimum of time. Instead, she wished 
a plan that would set up a socialized community 
where real conditions for work prevail. The 
freeing process for the individual is as essential 
as is learning to read or write. Therefore, the 
teacher should never resort to the device of 
having children work on lesson sheets or follow 
directions that are explicit in minute detail. 
Her position as consulting expert in the labora- 
tory gives her an opportunity to become famil- 
iar with the mental traits and habits of work 
of each of her children. She can not be fooled 
about the grade of work any child is doing. The 
ordinary term or monthly tests enable her to 
check his grasp of facts and details. 

Pupils should be free to move about, choose 
their own seats, form groups, talk, use appar- 
atus and materials ; do anything they deem nec- 
essary for the best completion of their contract 
as long as it does not interfere with the others 
working in the room. Children can learn, as 
adults learn, by working in a real laboratory, 



42 THE DALTON LABORATORY PLAN 

by checking their ideas and progress against 
their companions', by talking over difficult 
points, by going to the dictionary or map imme- 
diately, by comparing and combining the opin- 
ions in their*group, and by being free to work 
alone when and as they need to. This type of 
study develops, by requiring accurate work, 
perseverance, critical judgment and initiative. 
"Where children are interested, their judgment 
is sound. They reject the trivial; shut out of 
their groups the mental hangers-on and the 
lazy; and, because they are working with their 
peers, stimulate each other to greater efforts. 
Setting up conditions for this kind of work 
helps the children get the kind of social train- 
ing they need. By working freely with others, 
they learn to adjust themselves to their environ- 
ment. The teacher can organize the group 
work by having the children who have reached 
the same point in their assignment report to 
her for help and discussion as a group, and by 
giving special topics to small groups for re- 
search and reports to the class. 

Class meetings should be reorganized under 
the plan as periods for discussion and group 
projects instead of recitations. The teacher's 



THE LABORATORY 43 

knowledge of her pupils' general attainments 
comes from her intimate contact during the free 
study time. Her knowledge of their grasp of 
facts comes through periodic tests and examina- 
tions. The class hour is not needed to find out 
whether last night's lessons have been studied, 
but it is needed to give a general explanation 
of the month's or week's assignment, to point 
out difficulties and put facts in their proper 
proportion, to give pupils a chance to express 
themselves before the group. A teacher can 
easily develop a general routine for these meet- 
ings according to the number which occur each 
week. If she has three recitations, one can be 
devoted to a lecture, one to students' reports, 
and one to written work or supervision of group 
projects. If she has only two, both can be spent 
in discussion and planning with the children. 
The monthly tests will probably be given in class 
time. If there is only one class meeting a week, 
the important points and difficulties of the as- 
signment should be thought out ahead of time, 
and the period carefully planned to bring out 
the continuity of the work.: In every school, 
there is an assembly, athletics and dramat- 
ics, class meetings and entertainments. The 



44 THE DALTON LABORATORY PLAN 

educational value of these activities should 
be recognized. They should be, as far as pos- 
sible, incorporated in the regular curriculum. 
In adult life, art and recreation are the chief 
mediums of social intercourse. Why should this 
not be so in the school? They can be organized 
so as to develop standards of taste, apprecia- 
tion and social poise. In assembly, pupils can 
tell their comrades about interesting assign- 
ments or pieces of work they have done. They 
can use the art principles they have learned for 
making stage settings, and their music for giv- 
ing pleasure to the rest of the school. The as- 
sembly can become the social and intellectual 
centre of the whole school, where standards are 
set and school spirit developed. Student activ- 
ities can be organized on a self-government 
basis with teachers acting as advisors. All these 
things should be done by the pupils in the same 
way that they do daily lessons. Through them, 
the school can give practice in all sorts of nec- 
essary social qualities, and training for citizen- 
ship and democracy. 



CHAPTER III 

The Assignments 

Teacheks have always recognized the impor- 
tance of dividing the courses of study into suit- 
able assignments. The pupiPs understanding 
of the general thread of the subject depends 
upon the skill used in making these sub-divi- 
sions. But in practice, the connection between 
this and the learning process has not been suf- 
ficiently emphasized. In th^ average recitation 
or oral lesson, the assignment is left until the 
end of the period, and is hurriedly given as a 
number of pages or problems the pupil must 
find time to study before the next lesson. Little 
time is spent in giving the class a general out- 
line of the subject or explanation of the values 
they are supposed to get from it. They are 
plunged immediately into the details of facts, 
dates or figures. They are too often left to 
build up for themselves the general interpreta- 

45 



46 THE DALTON LABORATORY PLAN 

tion of this material after the course is finished. 
Modern psychology has shown that the mind 
does not naturally work in this way. An idea, 
a general conception comes first. Afterwards, 
it is analyzed into the separate data that sub- 
stantiate the general truth. The conventional 
method of presenting school subjects by induc- 
tion persists in the face of this psychological 
discovery. This is enough to account for the 
failure of public school graduates to apply what 
they have learned in school to their lives after 
they have left. 

Through the monthly contracts, the Dalton 
Laboratory Plan provides for the natural, the 
deductive method of presenting subject matter. 
The assignment for the month gives the general 
idea. The weekly sub-divisions give the refer- 
ences that enable the pupil to gather the data 
that build up this central idea. 

Another discovery of modern psychology is 
the impossibility of effort without interest. De- 
tails in themselves are uninteresting, but as 
steps in the analysis of a stated problem, they 
take on meaning and interest. If the task itself 
is not interesting, the will to do must be enlisted 
by some trick or device. Because the old- 



THE ASSIGNMENTS 47 

fashioned classification of subject matter did 
not correspond to the workings of the mind, it 
failed to be interesting or of itself to enlist 
effort. The rewards and punishments involved 
in the system of examinations, marks, promo- 
tions and prizes were relied on to stimulate the 
necessary effort. 

The monthly assignment in stating one gen- 
eral idea does much to put a school subject in 
interesting form and so on its own face value to 
arouse the pupiPs effort. In making an assign- 
ment the pupil's interests can be taken into con- 
sideration. All children want to know. The 
assignment tells them something they may know 
and they are eager to learn. 

The whole contract consists of a number of 
assignments, each having to do with special 
phases of a general topic. Any one assignment 
should not be a formal statement of the number 
of pages to be read in specified text and ref- 
erence books. It should, instead, be in the na- ^ 
ture of a syllabus stated in an interesting way. 
It points out the central idea, the ground to be 
covered, difficult points to be noted and kept in 
mind, questions to be answered, and last, spe- 
cific lessons in the way of written or oral work 



V 



48 THE DALTON LABORATORY PLAN 

to be done. The teacher conceives the assign- 
ment as a plan made for the pupil to use in 
attacking the subject, instead of the usual out- 
line for her to follow in conducting recitations. 
In preparing these assignments, she attempts to 
get at the solution of subject difficulties from 
the standpoint of the learner. The problem is 
set up. The pupil has his subject laboratory in 
which to work out his solution. He must, there- 
fore, be informed of the difficulties he will meet 
and told what the teacher expects of him. The 
teacher gives the inspiration by stating the 
requirements so as to arouse the learner ^s curi- 
osity, and by devising ways to facilitate his at- 
tack. The use of thought-provoking questions 
is helpful in accomplishing this. 

Where a teacher is reorganizing her subject 
without making any change in her usual course 
of study, she must keep two points in mind in 
blocking out her assignments. First, she should 
keep rather closely to the monthly basis. The 
course of study should be divided into a number 
of equal parts corresponding to the number of 
months in the school calendar allotted to it. 
This is necessary in order to enable the student 
to check his own progress and plan his time in 



THE ASSIGNMENTS 49 

each course in relation to all his other courses. 
That is, if assignments are made simply on the 
basis of topic division of the subject, one prob- 
lem may require two weeks and the next six. 
Even when this is clearly indicated, the result 
would be confusion for the pupil where the 
spirit of the plan, putting the responsibility on 
the child, is followed. A child would have a 
number of contracts, one for each subject, and 
each might require a different time for its com- 
pletion. If he is to finish each in the various 
time limits, he would no longer be free to plan 
his time according to his interests, staying in 
one laboratory a whole morning when he be- 
came absorbed ; nor would he be able to use his 
past experience in planning his next contracts. 
Instead, the tendency would be to reduce the 
assignments to a daily basis, and to rely on 
the teacher for direction in the distribution of 
his time. 

Besides the loss of training for the pupil, ir- 
regular assignments would complicate adminis- 
tration problems for the teachers. The labora- 
tory score that enables teachers to getttogether 
and measure the progress and rate of study of 
each pupil would become meaningless, because 



1^ 



50 THE DALTON LABORATORY PLAN 

each assignment and each subject would be 
measured in different units. Difficulties in mak- 
ing individual adjustments would also be 
greatly increased. The two occasions for this 
are, usually, for the child who is behind in some 
subjects and advanced in others, and the one 
who through no mental handicap is behind 
his grade for his age. For both these cases, 
it is desirable to set aside the rule that no new 
assignments can be started until all the previ- 
ous month ^s work is completed, and to encour- 

^ age the child to save as much time as possible, 
starting new contracts in some or all his subjects 
as soon as the old one is done to the teacher ^s 
satisfaction. Unless all contracts and all sub- 

n/ jects are divided on an equglj:ime basis, such 
cases would cause confusion. Teachers would 
have to spend endless time in consultation and 
planning in order to prevent very uneven sub- 
ject progress. Therefore, it is desirable to have 
a uniform time unit for contracts. But in divid- 
ing the course ofstudy into months of work, the 
necessity of having each contract an intellectual 
whole must never be sacrificed. 

Each contract should always be built up 
around a central idea. In a subject like 



THE ASSIGNMENTS 61 

Latin, where the class is reading Caesar, 
one problem may require the better part 
of the year for completion. Here, contracts 
are like mile posts. They mark progress in 
a task where patience and continuity are es- 
sential and each post is much like the last. The 
first assignment in the fall should devote some 
time to the historical setting for the Commen- 
tary, the reasons for studying it, its interest 
and value to the pupils, and types of new prob- 
lems that must be met. After this, the con- 
tracts for several months may properly follow 
each other with little more differentiation than 
the class progress in reading. This applies to 
all subjects that are conventionally accepted as 
drill. Even here, there is always an historical 
background, new rules, or special pieces of re- 
search and reports that can be planned as units 
and to give greater content to the work. 

Other subjects, where the year's work re- 
quires the completion of a series of problems, 
should be divided on the basis of ti^e.^mdLt0pic. ^ 
In history, for example, a contract should not 
stop in the middle of the Wars of the Roses 
because under the conventional study plan a 
class would reach that point by the end of the 



52 THE DALTON LABORATORY PLAN 

third month. A different arrangement of the 
STib-topics in the problem should be made so 
that, say, the pupil's textual study and map- 
drawing is a unit, and his essay or supplemen- 
tary reading can be made a week's unit in the 
following contract. The problem will not prove 
as difficult as it may appear if the teacher ap- 
proaches it with the pedagogic advantages of 
her new opportunity in mind. 

The following contracts were used in a small 
private school where the course of study is 
adapted to the class of children. The fifth 
grade was studying Greek history and the Eng- 
lish class is advanced compared with the aver- 
age eighth grade in a public school. At the 
same time, the assignments furnish concrete il- 
lustrations of the way a course of study can 
be adapted to the plan; the methods the 
teachers used to insure thorough study, enlist 
the children's interest and bring out the central 
topics. The contracts are portions taken from 
the complete course, and so, naturally, it is the 
thought of the specific point being studied that 
is brought out. 

In judging the pupiPs ability to accomplish 
these contracts, the reader should remember 



THE ASSIGNMENTS 53 

that the block of work has been discussed in a 
class meeting, and that all the studying will be 
done in the subject laboratory with the teacher 
at hand to give help and criticize results, and 
with a subject library and appropriate equip- 
ment always available. 

Greek History 
Fifth Grade 4th Contract 

First Week. 

Last month we read how the Greeks fought 
against the Persians and drove them out of 
Greece. You remember the Battle of Marathon 
and the Battle of Salamis. After the Persian 
Wars were over, and the Persians had decided 
that they could not conquer the Greeks, the 
Greeks went back to their homes. You remem- 
ber the Athenians had had their homes burned 
by the Persians just before the Battle of Sala- 
mis, so they had to start their city over again. 

The Spartans were jealous of the Athenians, 
so they did everything they could to keep the 
Athenians from rebuilding their city. They 
were afraid that the Athenians would become 
the most important people in Greece. The 
Athenians, however, succeeded in getting their 
city rebuilt. They soon got into trouble with 
the Spartans, who were very jealous still. 
Finally, this trouble ended in a long and cruel 



54 THE DALTON LABORATORY PLAN 

war between the two cities. This is what we 
shall read about this week. Read the story 
called Beginning of the Peloponnesian War in 
^^The Story of the Greeks.^' This w^ar was 
called the Peloponnesian War, because Sparta 
was in it and Sparta was in the part of Greece 
called the Peloponnesus. When you have fin- 
ished the reading, write out the answers to the 
following questions: 

1. Who fought in the Peloponnesian War? 

2. Why did the two countries fight? 

3. How did Pericles explain the eclipse of 
the sun? (This is two days' work.) 

We shall also read about the Death of Per- 
icles, the great leader of the Athenians. Write 
the answers to these questions when you have 
finished ; 

1. What caused the death of Pericles? 

2. What was said about the way Pericles 
found the city and the way he left it? (This 
is one day's work.) 

The third story to read this week is called 
Greek Colonies in Italy. You will find the page 
by looking in the index. You will find out there 
about some of the Greek cities in Italy and 
Sicily. Look on the map in the front of the 
book, and see where the cities are. You will 
be interested to see how the people in some of 
the cities loved comfort and luxury. You will 
also find out about how the Athenians planned 
a great expedition to attack some of the cities 
in Sicily. Write the answers to the following 
questions : 



THE ASSIGNMENTS 55 

1. Tell a story to show how the Sybarites 
liked comfort, 

2. Who were the leaders of the Athenian 
fleet? 

3. What was Alcibiades accused of? (This 
is two days' work.) 

BE SUEE TO BRING ALL YOUR WRITTEN ANSWERS 
TO ME BEFORE YOU MARK UP YOUR WORK. 



Second Week. 

This week let ns follow the fortunes of the 
Athenian leader, Alcibiades. He was the best 
one to lead the expedition, and without him the 
fleet and army did not do much. Very few of 
the men who started out with the fleet ever 
reached home again. Let us read the story 
called Alcibiades in Disgrace and the story 
called The Death of Alcibiades in ^^The Story 
of the Greeks.'' 

When you have finished the reading, and 
think you know about Alcibiades, write out an- 
swers to the following questions : 

1. Tell how Alcibiades changed sides. 

2. Why did he change ? 

3. How many times did he change ? 

4. Tell about the death of Alcibiades. 

5. How did the Peleponnesian War end? 

6. Who won? 

BE SURE TO BRING ALL YOUR WRITTEN ANSWERS 
TO ME BEFORE YOU MARK UP YOUR WORK 



56 THE DALTON LABORATORY PLAN 

Third Week. 

I wonder how many of yon have ever heard 
of the Greek philosopher, Socrates. I wonder 
how many of yon know what a philosopher is 
anyway. See if yon can find out from your 
reading this week. This week we shall read 
about the philosopher, Socrates, in a story 
called that in the ^^ Story of the Greeks.'' We 
shall also read two other stories about this same 
man, one called The Accusation of Socrates, and 
the other called The Death of Socrates. When 
you have read all about him, write the answers 
to the following questions : 

(About the Philosopher Socrates) 

1. What is a philosopher? 

2. What did Socrates believe? 

3. Tell about Socrates and Xanthippe. 

(About the Accusation of Socrates) 

4. How did the Athenians come to think 
badly of Socrates? 

(About the Death of Socrates) 

5. What became of Socrates? 

BE SURE TO BEING ALL YOUR WRITTEN ANSWERS 
TO ME BEFORE YOU MARK UP YOUR CARD 



Fourth Week. 

We have been reading about the wars that 
the cities in Greece carried on among them- 
selves, and we have seen how the Spartans de- 
feated the Athenians in the great Peloponne- 
sian war. Some of the Greeks were still anx- 



THE ASSIGNMENTS 57 

ious to fight, so when a war broke out between 
two brothers who were trying to become King 
of Persia, a large force of Greeks went to help 
the younger brother, Cyrus. This week, we 
shall read about the adventures of the Greeks 
in Asia. The story to read is in the ' ' Story of 
the Greeks" and is called The Defeat of Cyrus. 
Then there is another story that comes right 
after that one called The Retreat of the Ten 
Thousand. Let us read that also. Then we 
shall write answers to these questions : 

1. Who was Cyrus fighting against? 

2. Who helped him? 

3. What happened to the Greek officers after 
the defeat? 

4. What did the Ten Thousand do? 

5. Who led them? 

6. Where did they go? (This work will be 
equivalent to three days' work.) 

We must go on, now, and see what came of 
the help that the Greeks gave to the Persian 
Cyrus. Artaxerxes, the brother who won out, 
was naturally angry at the Greeks for helping 
his brother, and so war broke out between the 
Greeks in Asia Minor and the Persians. Let us 
read about the Spartan King, Agesilaus, and 
his battles with Persians. There are two 
stories, one called Agesilaus in Asia and the 
other called A Strange Interview. When you 
have finished the reading, answer these ques- 
tions : 

1. What city was Agesilaus king of? 

2. What kind of looking man was he? 



58 THE DALTON LABORATORY PLAN 

3. When he met Pharnabazus what did Phar- 
nabazus find him doing? 

4. What did Pharnabazus do when he saw 
the simplicity of Agesilaus? 

SHOW ME YOUR ANSWERS BEFORE YOU MARK UP 
YOUR CARD 



American History 

Seventh Grade 4th Contract 

First Week. 

This week there will be two topics to read 
and study about. The first topic is A Wonder- 
ful Invention. This invention was made while 
Washington was president and was a very im- 
portant one to industry in the United States. 
Let us read about it in one of these two books : 
*^ Story of the Great Eepublic/' or ^^Some Suc- 
cessful Americans/' page 147 and following: 
When you have finished reading, write out full 
answers to the following questions : 

1. What was this invention? 

2. Who was the inventor? 

3. When was it invented? 

4. Why was this invention so important? 
The second topic is : The United States Buys 

Land. You will find out about this topic in 
* ' The Story of the Great Republic. ' ' When you 
have read the story, write the answers to the 
following questions: 



I 



THE ASSIGNMENTS 59 

1. Who sold this land to the United States? 

2. How much did we pay for it? 

3. What President bought it? 

4. Who explored this land? 

5. What river in the West did they go down? 

6. Who went to find the source of the Missis- 
sippi? 

7. What happened to him? 

8. What did John Jacob Astor do? 

9. Draw a map of the Louisiana Purchase. 
(You will find a map to copy on page 210 of 
Muzzey's ^^ American History.^') 

Second Week. 

While Thomas Jefferson was President we 
had a great deal of difficulty with pirates. Our 
first topic this week will be about that trouble. 
Eead ^^The Story of the Great Eepublic/' pages 
61-68, and then write the answers to the follow- 
ing questions : 

1. Whj did we fight pirates? 

2. What did the Dey order Bainbridge to do ? 

3. Tell about Bainbridge and the Philadel- 
phia. 

4. Tell about the burning of the Philadelphia. 

5. Tell about Richard Somers' brave deed. 

6. What was the result of the fighting with 
Tripoli? 

The second topic for this week is : The First 
Steamboat. Probably you know a good deal 
about it, and that it was first made and run on 
the Hudson River. Read The First Steamboat 
in ' ' The Story of the Great Republic' ' and write 
the answers to these questions : 



60 THE DALTON LABORATORY PLAN 

1. Tell the story of Aaron Burr. 

2. Who invented the steamboat? 

3. When was it invented? 

4. Where did it run? 

5. How has the steamboat developed since 
then? 

Third Week. 

Our topics of study this week are all about 
the War of 1812, our second war with Great 
Britain. England insisted that she had the 
right to stop any American vessels at any time 
and search them for English sailors that might 
be aboard. The Americans would not stand for 
any such procedure, and after much disputing 
we finally declared war on Great Britain in 
1812. Our first topic is called The War of 1812 
and is found in the ^^ Story of the Great Re- 
publics^ Write the answers to these questions, 
and show them to me before you mark up your 
cards. This should always be done. 

1. Tell about the fighting around Detroit. 

2. Who were the American generals at De- 
troit? 

3. Tell about the Constitution and the 
Guerriere. 

4. Who was the captain of the Constitution. 
The second topic is: ^' Don't give up the 

Ship/' found in ^^The Story of the Great Re- 
public. '^ Answer these questions: 

1. Who said those words, ^^ Don't give up the 
ship''? 

2. What American leader took the words for 
his motto? 



THE ASSIGNMENTS 61 

3. In what battle? 

4. Tell the story of the battle. 

5. What was the ^^ American Army of Two''? 
Tell the story. 

The third topic is The Star Spangled Banner. 
Eead about this in ' ' The Story of the Great Ee- 
public. ' ' Here are the questions about it. 

1. Who wrote it? Where was he? 

2. What were the British trying to do? 

3. Who won the last battle of the war? Where 
was it? 

4. What was the result of the war? 
Fourth Week. 

We shall have two topics this last week. The 
first one is Clinton^ s '^Big Ditch/' Read in 
*^The Story of the Great Republic'' about it, 
and then answer these questions : 

1. What was the ^^Big Ditch"? 

2. Who was Clinton? 

3. Where did the ditch run? 

4. What good was it and what good is it? 

Our other topic this week is The First Rail- 
road. The first real railroad in this country 
was one very near here, the New York Central. I 
am going to refer you to xx small pamphlet pub- 
lished by this railroad some years ago. I think 
you will find it interesting, not only the reading 
but also the pictures. Read it all, and when 
you have finished come to me and talk over with 
me what you have learned about this railroad. 



62 THE DALTON LABORATORY PLAN 

Literature 
Eighth Grade 4th Contract 

This month we shall read a book by Kipling, 
Captains Courageous. It is an exciting story of 
the life of the brave fishermen on the Grand 
Banks of Newfoundland. I am sure you will 
like it. I am sure you will like Harvey and Dan 
and all the others. When you get through read- 
ing the story, instead of writing a book report 
on it, write short stories on the following sub- 
jects. 

Bring the stories to me after you have done 
them, and I will correct and approve them. 

1. Suppose you were a reporter on the Glou- 
cester Daily Herald. You hear about the ad- 
venture of Harvey and Dan with the dead 
Frenchman. Write this story up as an account 
for a newspaper. Be sure to make it interest- 
ing, for that is the most important thing about 
a newspaper story. 

2. Suppose you were Harvey on board the 
*^ We're Here" after he had been there a month. 
Write a letter home to your mother telling your 
experiences during that time. Tell her just how 
you feel, imagining all the time that you are 
Harvey. I think you can easily imagine his 
feelings as he writes. 



THE ASSIGNMENTS 63 

Literature 
Eighth Grade 5th Contract 

Our reading this month will be Rob Roy, by 
Sir Walter Scott. The reading will count as 
three weeks' work. 

The fourth week's work will be to write a 
book review of Rob Roy. This is different from 
the book reports you have written before. This 
review is the kind of thing you find in the Lit- 
erary Digest. The purpose of these reviews 
is to enable people to tell by reading the re- 
views, whether or not they wish to read the 
book. There are the things that should go into 
a book review. 

1. Put down the full title, and the name of 
the author. 

2. Put down the name of the publisher, and 
the number of pages in the book, so that the 
reader will know where to get it and how big 
the book is. 

3. Give a short account of the story, putting 
in only the important facts. 

4. Tell what you think of the book. Tell 
whether you liked it or not, and why. 

Bring your review to me when you have fin- 
ished. 



CHAPTER IV 
A Dalton High School 

Miss Parkhukst 's organization plan was first 
tried in a secondary school, in the town high 
school in Dalton, Massachusetts. Before that, 
it had been tried in an ungraded school and also 
in a State graded school for a test period. The 
Dalton High School had preserved the classical 
traditions of the New England academies. The 
town is a mill centre. The result was a serious 
lack of adjustment between the lives of the pu- 
pils and the school curriculum. There was no 
reason why most of the young people could not 
go to high school when they finished the gram- 
mar school, if they realized the need for more 
education. The high school curriculum devoted, 
as it was, to college preparation under arbi- 
trary conditions did little to make them see this 
need. 

Mr. Jackman, the school principal, realized the 

64 



A DALTON HIGH SCHOOL 65 

situation. Because of New England conditions 
and a conservative school board, he was unable 
to make the town feel that a high school was a 
stepping-stone to real vocational education in 
colleges and special schools. Young people in a 
factory town quite naturally will not spend four 
years in preparation for training when that 
preparation is wholly classical. Every year 
the freshman class was large, but only a hand- 
ful of pupils from the more well-to-do and am- 
bitious families graduated. 

The principal believed that education, not 
mere college preparation, is the proper func- 
tion of a public school. He was unable to 
change his curriculum, but he saw in Miss Park- 
hurst 's plan an opportunity to reorganize on a 
basis that would enormously increase the edu- 
cational value of his courses. He gained the 
permission of the school authorities to try the 
plan for part of the school day. A number of 
school meetings were held to explain the plan 
to parents and pupils. Finally, the conserva- 
tive village promised a rather half-hearted co- 
operation. The community was frankly sus- 
picious. They accepted the conventional school 
as a tradition. Its workings had never been 



66 THE DALTON LABORATORY PLAN 

questioned nor its results examined. The busi- 
ness of persuasion and explanation dragged 
through the summer and fall of 1919. The date 
for beginning the experiment had to be post- 
poned until the opening of the second half of the 
school year. 

The adoption of the plan was so uncertain 
that very little had been done in the way of 
making detailed plans for the change. Miss 
Parkhurst prepared a circular setting forth the 
plan in briefest outline. The portions dealing 
with the general purposes of the re-organiza- 
tion are given here as they contain a statement 
of the educational possibilities of the plan in a 
high school where there is no attempt to alter 
curriculum. 

The ^^ Laboratory School" Plan* 

Note: ^^ Laboratory,'' as here applied, desig- 
nates academic workshops where boys and 
girls discover their native faculties and needs 
through real experiences relating to the world 
they live in and where they acquire a thorough 



* Parkhurst, Helen pph. 



A DALTON HIGH SCHOOL 67 

knowledge of the academic essentials as a mini- 
mum. 

^^The plan has to do with a simple and 
economic reorganization of the High School, 
whereby pupils and teachers function to better 
advantage; by it, inefficiency in pupils and 
teachers is reduced to a minimum. It does not 
add to or change the curriculum ; it does not de- 
pend upon expensive school plants or elaborate 
equipment; it precludes the idea that there is 
any one method of teaching subjects, and ap- 
proaches the matter from the standpoint of the 
boy and girl problem. It provides equal oppor- 
tunities for advancement to bright and slow pu- 
pils alike, without sacrificing thoroughness; it 
does away with program conflicts and will go 
far towards doing away with ^repeaters.' 

^ ' The plan will change and grow with the dis- 
coveries of the faculty and will contribute much 
to educational advancement. 

^^Importance: A. An experiment which will 
set for itself the solution of High School prob- 
lems, and thereby lay a foundation for a useful 
citizenship. 

**B. In its demonstration it must be actuated 
by sound principles of education, putting the 
emphasis upon character development as a re- 
quisite for citizenship, rather than upon acad- 
emic accomplishment. 

' ' C. An experiment which will serve as a so- 
ciological laboratory for human development, 
i.e., where the needs of boys and girls will be 



68 THE DALTON LABORATORY PLAN 

studied, rather than a place where the foregone 
conclusions of a group are applied to the boys 
and girls ; a place where the experiences of boys 
and girls, in a carefully prepared environment, 
will permit them to arrive freely at conclusions ; 
to bring about self-realization in the boys and 
girls. 

^^ Scope of Work: A school consisting of a 
group of academic laboratories for each subject 
taught in High School. 

^' Hours: The school day will be from 8:40 
A. M. to 3:15 P. M., including luncheon period; 
the time from 8:10 A. M. to 11:50 A. M. being 
devoted to free academic laboratory work, and 
the time from 1 :15 P. M. to 3 :15 P. M. being 
devoted to regular classes. 

^^Aim of the Work: To have the pupils indi- 
vidually graded in ungraded groups in their 
progress through a graded curriculum; to teach 
the children to study; to create conditions fav- 
orable to arousing the initiative, interest and 
personal motives of the pupils ; to create condi- 
tions in the curriculum and administration 
which shall make possible the desire to learn 
under the impulses of self -initiative ; to permit 
the individual pupil to progress through his 
chosen graded curriculum as rapidly as his 
mental ability allows ; to permit pupils to work 
uninterrupted in the completion of the task in 
order that they may have a proper valuation of 
time; to develop a sense of personal responsi- 
bility towards their education; to consider the 
laboratory head as a guide and helper rather 



A DALTON HIGH SCHOOL 69 

than as an instructor or driver; to gain in 
power to survey a subject; to cultivate a desire 
to be well-informed and intelligent, rather than 
to attain a passing mark; to regard education 
as a pleasure and as a necessary adjunct to ad- 
vancement. 

^^Plan of Assignment and Work: The school 
year consists of ten months. The curriculum is 
graded into Freshman, Sophomore, Junior and 
Senior requirements. A year's assignment in 
any one subject covering the work of any one 
class is divided into ten portions of work. When 
the pupils enter school, they are given curricu- 
lum cards corresponding to their rating in the 
school. The curriculum cards for each class are 
of a different color, and on them are printed 
the first month ^s assignments in the four funda- 
mental subjects carried. For instance, a Fresh- 
man holds a blue card on which he finds as- 
signments in mathematics, English, history, 
etc. ; a Sophomore holds a yellow card, etc. In 
order that the card may not be too cumbersome, 
the assignments are general and relate to more 
detailed assignments exhibited in each subject 
laboratory. Each detailed assignment is sub- 
divided into four weeks. 

'^The time from 8:40 to 11:50 is at the dis- 
position of each student. Each has a curricu- 
lum card giving assignments of work which can 
be covered in a school month of 20 days. This 
monthly assignment is divided into weeks, hut 
the boys and girls have the entire responsibility 
of dividing the weekly assignments into days. 



70 THE DALTON LABORATORY PLAN 

He may either concentrate npon one subject, 
complete the month's assignment in that sub- 
ject and take a test, or he may study each sub- 
ject a short time each day and take all of his 
examinations at one time. Each pupil must 
complete the requirements of the first month 
on the first card, before receiving the second 
card of assignments in his graded curriculum, 
i.e., the exception to this rule will be made at 
the discretion of the faculty for the good of in- 
dividuals under consideration. 

^^On a card especially designed for the pur- 
pose, each pupil makes a graph of his daily 
progress, showing the amount of work covered 
in each subject during the 20-day period, i.e., 
the school month. The plan, as tested to date, 
shows that the children are much interested in 
their progress, and that they elect to begin with 
the most difficult subjects rather than the easier 
ones; that when left to dispose of their own 
time they accomplish more because they advance 
at their own individual rate of progress; that 
the children are keenly interested in the prog- 
ress of their companions and have much in com- 
mon to discuss; that the 20-day assignment is 
often covered in 15 days ; and sometimes in 10 
days, giving more time for research.'' 

On this basis, the teachers started the plan. 
Half the year's w^ork had already been done. 
The teachers of each department made out in 
general terms a schedule of their courses for 



A DALTON HIGH SCHOOL 71 

the remainder of the year. This was divided 
into five portions, each representing the stand- 
ard amount to be done in one month. The record 
cards and graphs used were those described 
above, altered to fit the particular subjects 
studied in the school. The afternoon session 
had a fixed program. The pupils met their 
teachers in regular class periods. There were, 
naturally, fewer recitations a week in each sub- 
ject than when the whole day is devoted to 
classes. This made some alteration in the con- 
duct of recitations necessary. But no set way 
of solving the problem was suggested. Each 
teacher was free to make the adjustment that 
seemed to her the best to meet the require- 
ments of her subject matter. The teacher's func- 
tion in the free study time is fivefold: (1) to 
preserve an atmosphere of study in the room; 
(2) to explain any detail of the assignment; (3) 
to give information in regard to the use of de- 
partmental equipment; (4) to give suggestions 
in regard to methods of attacking particular 
problems; and (5) when the need actually 
arises, to give full explanation of a point and 
of its relation to the general principle of the 
subject. 



72 THE DALTON LABORATORY PLAN 

Presence in school was attested by means of 
a time sheet posted near the school entrance. 
On this sheet the student checked np his advent, 
and, if late, inserted in a special column the 
time of his arrival. He was responsible to his 
group advisor for explanation of either absence 
or tardiness. The general honesty in the use 
of this time sheet is an extremely encouraging 
feature of the work. 

Few changes were made in the arrangement 
of the school building. The library books were 
distributed to the appropriate laboratories so 
as to be within reach at any time during the 
free study. The history room was already fur- 
nished with tables and chairs, but otherwise the 
building is equipped with the usual screwed 
down desks. A freer arrangement of furniture 
is undoubtedly desirable under the plan, be- 
cause of the necessity of encouraging the for- 
mation of informal groups during study time. 
But the Dalton High School has shown that 
where such alterations are not feasible, the plan 
can work satisfactorily under formal conditions. 
Two or three pupils can group themselves 
around one desk or a few extra chairs can be 



A DALTON HIGH SCHOOL 73 

placed in each room, so that pupils can retire 
to a corner for a quiet conference. 

The next year, 1920-1921, owing largely to 
prejudice, the free study time was confined to 
the first two hours in the morning. The rest of 
the day was organized on the usual recitation 
basis. But the plan of posting assignments by 
the month and week continued, and pupils were 
permitted to portion their study time quite 
freely, progressing as they chose in the different 
subjects within the limits of the month's con- 
tract. This apparently slight change in the 
school program effected a complete reorganiza- 
tion in the school as far as spirit, attitude and 
habits of study were concerned. 

In one year, under the new plan, the student 
body learned the lesson it never got from 
the old school— that high school is a prepara- 
tion for vocational training. Every mem- 
ber of the graduating class made plans 
to go to a higher school. Under the old 
plan few pupils went. Mr. Jackman believes 
that this is because the free study plan makes 
the school life an active, not a passive, affair. 
Children are no longer dragged and pushed 
through an uninteresting four years. They have 



74 THE DALTON LABORATORY PLAN 

to get their lessons on their own initiatives. 
This means that they are more interested, plan 
their time to better advantage, waste less time, 
and remember what they learn better because 
the contract gives continuity to the daily les- 
sons. The pupils become partners in the busi- 
ness of preparation for college. As partners, 
they have a new sense of the importance of the 
venture and its value. Such gains in habits and 
attitudes are none the less valuable because 
they are somewhat intangible and incapable 
of statement in objective or quantitative terms. 
It is through practice in using character quali- 
ties of responsibility, initiative and judgment 
that sound people and good citizens develop. 

Mr. Jackman has stated the disadvantages 
and advantages of the plan, as he saw them at 
the end of the first half year 's trial, in conserv- 
ative and judicial terms that will ring true to 
the ears of every teacher.^' ^^We started with 
a compromise. Unfortunately, this broad, nat- 
ural and altogether ingenious scheme could not 
be carried into effect completely. 

^^The forenoon only was devoted to the indi- 



*Jackman, E.D.— The Dalton Plan. The School Review: vol 
XXVIII, Nov. 1920, p. 688 ff. 



A DALTON HIGH SCHOOL 73 

vidual work described. In the original plan pro- 
posed by Miss Parkhnrst, group consciousness 
and creativeness were to be attained through the 
organization of special groups, the interests of 
which were to be developed through investiga- 
tion of special phases of a subject. For instance, 
in relation to English, debate, public speaking, 
dramatics, and literary discussions were pro- 
posed; for history, discussions of political ques- 
tions of the day, of the art of some particular 
[period and its meaning as related to the life of 
|that era; for science, practical demonstrations 
, of peculiar phenomena or of home-made scien- 
tific apparatus ; for Latin, reports on translated 
works, Eoman government, or the nature of 
Latin life as revealed in Pompeian excavations ; 
for French, comparison of Parisian French 
with phases of the Canadian dialects, or the 
bringing of some person to the group who could 
tell of France as he saw it. Cut-and-dried reci- 
tations were altogether to be dispensed with as 
being forced and artificial. 

^^It was believed by the state inspector of 
secondary schools, to whom the matter was re- 
ferred, that a serious loss of systematic drill 
would result from the omission of the conven- 



76 THE DALTON LABORATORY PLAN 

tional recitation. Afternoon schedules of reci- 
tations were put into operation — recitations 
based upon the indicated median of class prog- 
ress — and an earnest effort was made by the 
teachers to hold the interest of a group of 
students divided by varying rates of progress 
to lessons drawn from class text-books. The 
results of this attempt to weld together two 
inharmonious systems were not altogether en- 
couraging. Where some good results were 
obtained, they followed methods similar to 
those of Miss Parkhurst's original plan. Eng- 
lish, history, and science, as well as mathe- 
matics, drifted into conditions of promise. Lan- 
guage study, especially French^ began to give 
trouble. This was partly remedied by giving 
up a part of the precious forenoon time to drill 
and memory work. At the end of the year, 
students were being encouraged to choose the 
group appropriate to their progress, and in- 
telligent use of this principle of choice did much 
to solve difficulties. It seems to be true, how- 
ever, that, even though drill and memory work 
may be necessary and may avert future disaster 
from the student preparing for college, the souls 
of Eome and of France are just as far away, 



A DALTON HIGH SCHOOL 77 

perhaps farther away, because of persistent ab- 
sorption of the energies of students and teachers 
of foreign languages. 

''We are forced to admit that in this school, 
at least, and probably in many others, the forced 
and unnatural method of teaching modern lan- 
guage — giving instruction solely to prepare for 
college — is mischievous in the extreme. Had it 
been possible suddenly to reform in this respect, 
making the right atmosphere, for the language 
and letting it develop like a natural organism, 
Miss Parkhurst's system would have fitted the 
subject, as a good glove fits the hand. The con- 
clusion deduced from observation is that not the 
plan, but the conditions under which we were 
trying to use the plan were at fault. This con- 
clusion is highly encouraging, for the instructors 
know what must be striven for in the future. 
Modern language, like any other subject, pre- 
sents no insuperable difficulty. More than that, 
the subject, properly approached, would per- 
haps benefit to an unusual extent. 

''No special training was given the teachers 
in preparation for the change. The plan was 
under consideration for some months previous 
to its adoption, and they had ample opportunity 



78 THE DALTON LABORATORY PLAN 

to comprehend its principles. It is true that they 
made some mistakes, that of overloading the 
monthly assignment with details being perhaps 
the most serious. All report a new vision of 
education and a desire for further progress in 
the same line. 

' ^ Our observations and collected data lead to 
interesting conclusions in regard to the students 
of low intellect as well as to results with pupils 
of high intelligence. In regard to the former, 
the majority showed profit in thoroughness and 
inspiration. The fact that the entering class 
was not intellectually as strong as usual and 
that the proportion of absolute failure was con- 
siderably decreased seems to speak well for re- 
sults. It is, of course, true that the system 
increases the difficulty of adjustment for enter- 
ing pupils, coming as they do from elementary 
schools conducted under the conventional sys- 
tem. Some of the higher pupils, notably girls 
accustomed to attainment of rank through the 
exercise of memory alone, suffered a reduction 
of inspiration and apparent progress. Time 
brought to many of them readjustment and some 
understanding of values hitherto unknown, and 
though, in some cases, the lost ground was re- 



A DALTON HIGH SCHOOL 79 

covered slowly, their increased self-reliance and 
initiative seemed full compensation. A larger 
proportion of boys of all grades of intellect than 
of girls received immediate benefit. This may 
be due to the greater general experience of the 
average boy in exercising his creative faculties. 

^^The advantages of the system are fairly evi- 
dent. Unusually able students need no longer 
be held back to fulfil the necessities of a rigid 
schedule. Students of rather low ability will 
be able to go on without the Damoclean threat 
of mthheld credit and will be able also to reap 
full benefit of the instructor's assistance and 
inspiration. Repeaters, that bugbear of the 
program-devising principal, need no longer 
exist. There need be no turning back, except 
for proper reviews, and the self-conscious, dull 
student is not forced periodically to regard him- 
self as an intellectual failure. 

^^The problem of general discipline appears to 
be solved. Even in the earliest weeks of our 
work under the plan, the atmosphere of order 
and quiet industry was truly remarkable. Under 
the convenional hide-and-seek relations between 
teacher and pupil, a single instance of disorder 
was likely to spread like contagion throughout 



80 THE DALTON LABORATORY PLAN 

the schooL Under our plan, an attempt at dis- 
order was bitterly resented by most of the 
pupils affected by it and influenced no one be- 
yond the immediate scene. The close contact in 
departmental rooms between teacher and pupil 
deepened the sympathetic insight of both and 
largely prevented that friction between indi- 
viduals which so often blights the fondest hopes 
of the educational theorist in the concrete appli- 
cation of his ideas. 

^^ Since, under this plan, all teaching is done 
strictly by departments, no teacher finds himself 
obliged to force an interest in a subject to which 
he is really indifferent in order that the subject 
may be provided in the school curriculum. This 
fact, coupled with the elimination of friction be- 
tween teacher and pupil, means that the nervous 
strain so destructive to the health and abilities 
of the average instructor is eliminated. 

^^ Under this plan, the pupil slowly but surely 
acquires the point of view of the great industrial 
leaders in regard to time. No longer is the 
period of youth a fund of time to be squandered 
on useless diversions. He gradually gets the 
idea that his time is his capital, to be spent, in- 
deed, but to be spent systematically and judi- 



A DALTON HIGH SCHOOL 81 

ciously. His education becomes his vocation. 
He catches his first full vision of responsibility 
and, stimulated by the knowledge of powers re- 
cently discovered, he learns not to shirk the 
responsibility. He learns that a ranking system 
at best is an extremely poor measure of educa- 
tion, that the true measure lies in the increase 
of his own consciousness of power. 

^ ' The teachers of French and Latin felt that 
some gain in self-dependence had been made, 
though they were not at all sure that the subject 
had been better mastered. The teachers of 
mathematics, English, history, and science re- 
ported not only an advance in rank but a 
broader group of fundamental principles, a 
more practical attitude toward the subject, as 
well as a sturdier independence of mind/' 

An analysis of the teachers' grades for daily 
work and examinations indicates that there was 
no loss in scholastic attainment under the plan. 
There is no break in the marks that would sug- 
gest that a change of conditions had taken place 
in the school. There is not even any noticeable 
falling off for the first month under the plan, to 
indicate a difficult period of readjustment. 
Slight, insignificant fluctuations occur in indi- 



82 THE DALTON LABORATORY PLAN 

viduaPs marks for the two semesters, but there 
are no greater differences than would ordinarily 
occur by chance and even the slight variation is 
not uniformly higher or lower under the plan. 
There is one exception to this — the marks for 
mathematics which indicated a small, but uni- 
form gain after the plan was introduced. 

The description of the school at the end of the 
first months under the Dalton Plan suggests the 
kind of problems that must be met, and the way 
this high school has approached them. There is 
a real difference in the way the plan operates 
for different subjects. Mathematics and science 
fit into the new program with minimum read- 
justment of methods on the part of the teacher. 
Necessary explanation of principles can easily 
be given in one or two class periods a week, and 
students are distinctly the gainers from having 
all the rest of their time free to handle concrete 
material. The pupiPs success in solving prob- 
lems and with his experiments gives an adequate 
basis for judging his acquisition of knowledge. 

The chief difficulty seems to be in getting an 
adequate check on the pupiPs knowledge of 
facts. Before considering this too serious, how- 
ever, it should be remembered that the children 



A DALTON HIGH SCHOOL 83 

in the Dalton High School did not gain less con- 
trol of the information side of their courses even 
in the first term under the plan as judged by 
their marks. The problem then seems to be for 
each teacher to develop a new technique that 
will give him the same confidence in his super- 
vision of the learning process that has become 
traditional under the old method of daily assign- 
ments and recitations. 

Modern languages have proved the most dif- 
ficult subjects to readjust to laboratory condi- 
tions. Mr. Jackman has pointed out that many 
difficulties are inherent in our attitude towards 
the teaching of modern languages. Dissatis- 
faction with old methods is becoming more and 
more common and the introduction of the free 
study plan will do much to clarify these weak- 
nesses. Meanwhile, the teacher has an oppor- 
tunity to develop better methods of instruction 
by trying new groupings of subject matter and 
of students. The Dalton school reports the best 
adjustment by using the free study time and 
class periods as a device for working with small 
groups. A flexible program is mapped out for 
languages. Pupils are roughly classified accord- 
ing to their knowledge and ability in the subject, 



84 THE DALTON LABORATORY PLAN 

and small groups are assigned to the lab- 
oratory for certain periods. The teacher works 
with these pupils, making greater progress be- 
cause the class is small and because each mem- 
ber is at the same stage. Meetings of the whole 
class are held to keep up group spirit and to pro- 
mote a uniform standard. Pupils may also use 
the laboratories during the free study periods 
at times when they are not required to be there 
for group work. 

The Latin teacher has not had the difficulties 
reported by the French and German depart- 
ments. Latin is accepted as a dead language 
and since no attempt is made to have pupils 
speak or read it with real fluency, progress is 
very little affected by oral practice. Since pupils 
can have access to the teacher's expert assist- 
ance during study time, she can require a higher 
grade performance than is possible where all 
preparation is done out of school. In this way, 
it is possible to cover more ground during class 
meeting and to spend less time on details of con- 
struction and syntax. The pupil's mastery of 
grammar is checked through his prose and 
through written quizzes. The Latin teacher at 
Dalton says that the pupils do more work be- 



A DALTON HIGH SCHOOL 85 

cause the assignments are posted by the month. 
What is considered one-tenth of a year's work 
in Latin under the traditional daily recitation 
plan is done in less than a month with assign- 
ments and free study time. 
y The history teacher has made a special effort 
to adapt his methods to the new program. His 
classes have three meetings a week instead of 
the usual five. A large block of work is planned 
for each month and the weekly assignment is 
made a unit building up towards it. The class 
meetings are made periods for discussion and 
for giving continuity to the facts studied. The 
first two are lectures giving outlines, important 
points and some definite instruction in how to 
study and what to look for in the coming lessons. 
Free discussion is encouraged during these lec- 
tures and questions are asked to bring out the 
meaning of the assignments, never to test an 
individuaPs memory of facts. The third period 
is devoted to some type of questionnaire, to test 
progress and insure the pupils doing their 
work with sufficient thoroughness. Once a month, 
this takes the form of a written examination 
on the past month's assignment. At other times, 
it is devoted to reports from groups of pupils 



86 THE DALTON LABORATORY PLAN 

who have been asked to talk on special topics; 
to detailed supervision of small groups that are 
given special reference topics, and that work 
together in different parts of the room, the 
teacher devoting part of the hour to each group, 
or to general discussions carefully planned to 
bring out the pupiPs information and grasp of 
the subject. 

Mr. Jackman believes that the introduction of 
a plan for free study is but one step in the neces- 
sary re-organization of the public high schools 
of the country. This step promotes the forma- 
tion of mental habits and character qualities 
that are essential for good citizenship and a 
happy, successful personal life; such qualities 
as interest and industry, accuracy, critical judg- 
ment, self-reliance, initiative, responsibility and 
the development of personality through oppor- 
tunities for the creative spirit to operate freely. 

The organization plan Mr. Jackman is devel- 
oping in his attempt to make secondary public 
education meet the needs of modem life in a 
democracy is threefold. 

First is the re-organization of the program on 
the basis of free studies and assignments. The 
pedagogic and social reasons for this type of 



A DALTON HIGH SCHOOL 87 

organization have already been explained. Each 
teacher has freedom to develop the laboratory- 
technique for his subject according to his own 
skill and judgment. But they have agreed upon 
the foUomng machinery to insure the plans 
operating in accordance with 'the accepted high 
school curriculum and standards : 

1. To indicate the yearns work in monthly 
assignments posted in rooms of department 
in advance of month in which the respective 
classes are working. 

2. To find out by careful thought, the cen- 
tral truth of each day's assignment and strive 
to make the student build around that truth. 

3. To find out the strength and weaknesses 
of the individual pupil, and to keep in close 
touch with that student ^s advisors. 

4. To make a statement of the rank of the 
student at the completion of each month's as- 
signment, and immediately place such state- 
ment (numerically indicated) on the perman- 
ent office card, and (literally indicated) on the 
monthly report card of the student. 

5. To be able to present a report on any 
individual student of department at faculty 
meetings, at least once a week. 

Second, there is the teacher ^s responsibility 
as guide in preparing the pupils for their life 
after they leave school. Our American public 



88 THE DALTON LABORATORY PLAN 

schools are founded on the principle that every 
child, regardless of his birth and environment, 
has a right in his school life to the best the 
nation can offer. Mr. Jackman believes that the 
school should be ran with the conscious purpose 
of giving those pupils who lack home oppor- 
tunities such advice and information that they 
will be able to plan for professional training or 
for entry into industry with intelligence and 
ambition. To do this, the high school should 
have instruction and subject matter that is 
suited to the needs of citizenship and a school 
environment that gives the child a real and com- 
plete life. He believes that vocational guidance 
in high schools in rural districts should be 
broad. It is not their function to give technical 
trade training, but to have a sufficiently flexible 
and varied curriculum, so that all pupils can 
get a general cultural background. Even in such 
small high schools as the one at Dalton, he be- 
lieves it is possible to have equipment and 
teachers enough to make a rough division into 
classical, scientific and commercial courses, with 
some specialization in the last two years. The 
Dalton school has succeeded in adjusting its cur- 
riculum to the needs of the individual so well 



A DALTON HIGH SCHOOL 89 

with this informal departmentalization and the 
free study plan that all of this year's graduates 
are planning for further training. This requires 
a close relationship between teacher and pupil, 
so that the daily social life of the school will be 
on a high plane, and so that the vocational ad- 
vice will be suited to the needs and abilities of 
the individual. 

The third essential in an education for citizen- 
ship is student self-government. The use of the 
building, social activities, all the extra cur- 
riculum life of the school offer many oppor- 
tunities for the development of leadership, and 
for practice in initiative, self-control and group 
responsibility. This should be recognized as a 
real part of the school and organized so that the 
pupiPs experiences are of educational value to 
them. This means that the faculty must share 
in the student's social activities, giving their 
interest and support, and advice when it is 
needed. 

In order to insure the teacher's daily partici- 
pation in the student life of the school along 
these lines the following statements of their 
duties have been formulated: 



90 THE DALTON LABORATORY PLAN 



Ordee 

1. To protect all students of department 
from annoyance. 

2. To maintain respect for the instructors 
through their position as friends and leaders. 

3. To see that coming and going is immedi- 
ate and orderly. 

4. To see that furniture and books are prop- 
erly used. 

5. To loan books of department, keeping 
record of the same, and, at proper times to 
see that such books are restored to the de- 
partment. 

6. To help maintain a proper study ball. 



Advice 

1. To try to get on footing of friendship 
with assigned student and with his parents. 

2. To confer at least once a month with 
assigned student's instructors. 

3. To confer at least once each half year 
with the assigned student in regard to his 
work, his abilities, and his ambitions. 

4. To see that the year group is organized 
with proper officers, and that representations 
in school council meetings is continuous and 
effective. 

5. To audit accounts of the group organiza- 
tion at definite periods and to be able to report 



A DALTON HIGH SCHOOL 91 

to principal on the same at least once a half 
year. 

6. To act as chaperon for social functions 
of the group. 

7. To act as group excuse officer, keeping 
record of excuses, sending adequate notices to 
parents, and giving the principal immediate 
notice of unexcused absence or tardiness. 

8. To check return of report cards from 
parents within two weeks of issuance of such 
cards, and to give principal immediate notit3e 
of any losses. 

Each teacher is assigned to some one phase 
of the extra curriculum activities of the school. 
This has proved especially satisfactory as a 
method of building up a staff cooperating for 
the best ideals and aims of the school. It has 
also been of great practical value in freeing the 
principal from the burden of clerical work and 
detailed supervision that is too often his lot in 
small country high schools. These tasks cease 
to be onerous when divided among all the 
teachers. The school has made the following 
division of labor during the past year. It is 
made on the basis of the number of interests 
represented in the school, the number in the 
faculty to share the work, and the particular 
interest of each teacher. 



92 THE DALTON LABORATORY PLAN 

Special Work 

Physical interests and athletic training. 
Dramatic interests. 
Attendance record and report. 
Musical interests, records and correspond- 
ence. 

Teachers' library and catalogue files. 
Finance of athletic association. 

This account of the Dalton High School dur- 
ing the past two years is not offered as a pre- 
scription for all the ills of education. It is 
given in such detail with the hope that the story 
of what one school has done to vitalize school 
life and overcome the conditions that handicap 
pupils and teachers in many of our rural high 
schools may be a suggestion and inspiration to 
other schools in meeting their particular prob- 
lems. After a year and a half on the plan, the 
Dalton High School has convinced itself of a 
need of free organization, and in September, 
1921, began operating in ways more nearly cor- 
responding to Miss Parkhurst^s ideal than they 
attempted in the beginning. 



CHAPTEE V 

The Streatham County Secondary School 

The Streatham County Secondary School 
under the London County Council has been re- 
organizing on the Dalton Laboratory Plan since 
June, 1920, The school is a large girls' public 
high school, with competitive entrance examina- 
tions and tuition. The students have the back- 
ground or ambition to make them enter a clas- 
sical and scientific school as a preparation for 
higher technical training. Pupils who prove 
unequal to keeping up in their work are 
dropped. The student body is, therefore, a more 
selected group than is usual in American high 
schools. Girls may enter at ten years old, if 
they pass the examinations, and may continue in 
the school until they are nineteen. College en- 
trance examinations may not be tried before the 
age of sixteen. Those who fail at this time re- 
turn to school for another year. The school 

93 



94 THE DALTON LABORATORY PLAN 

makes its own curriculum, which is then sub- 
mitted to the University of London for ap- 
proval The purpose of the school is prepara- 
tion for the entrance examinations to this uni- 
versity, so the latitude is in choice of texts, sup- 
plementary work and in methods, rather than 
in course of study. 

The Streatham School follows the tradition of 
the English secondary schools in accepting stu- 
dent self-government as a matter of course. 
Each pupil is a member of a form and of a 
house. The form is the scholastic division, the 
class the girl studies with. The house is the 
social division. Girls are appointed to a house 
by the head mistress when they enter the school 
and they remain members of this house until 
they leave. The houses promote school spirit 
and friendly discipline. The older girls in a 
house are in the relation of sisters to the 
younger ones and responsible for them. House 
pride makes the girls look after the good name 
of the school outside of class time. The houses 
are responsible for order and manners in the 
buildings, and for punctuality. They coach 
games and inter-house matches. Shields are 
awarded for averages in scholarship and ath- 



STREATHAM COUNTY SCHOOL 95 

letics and to the winner in contests in dramatics, 
recitations and music. These are democratic 
and valuable to the whole house because the 
score is made on the basis of every member's 
record instead of judging from contests between 
the strongest girls in the different houses. The 
houses have officers who are appointed by the 
mistresses from lists made up by the house 
members. The head mistress chooses the school 
officers from these house officers. 

The self-government body of the forms is the 
school parliament. Representatives are elected 
to it by each form. The forms suggest rules and 
plans that must have a two-thirds majority to 
be sent to the parliament for adoption. The 
students take an active part in the conduct of 
the school through this parliament. It can sug- 
gest rules and changes on matters pertaining to 
discipline, administration, the course of study 
and the program. These are adopted or vetoed 
at the discretion of the mistresses. The stu- 
dents take charge of recording attendance and 
of study halls. They collect home work and 
supervise make-up work, and tend to nearly all 
the details of class-room procedure and dis- 
cipline. The parliament altered two of the 



96 THE DALTON LABORATORY PLAN 

teachers' recommendations last year. It had 
been decided that participation in house games 
and afternoon recreation should be voluntary 
instead of compulsory. The students were em- 
phatic in thinking that it should remain com- 
pulsory in order to insure every girl getting a 
minimum of exercise. The faculty also thought 
that cooking should be required for all the fifth- 
term students. The parliament objected on the 
ground that it was against school tradition and 
interfered with the pupils ' liberty. Their advice 
was followed, and ninety-five of the one hundred 
and three girls in the fifth term elected cooking. 
The pupils of the school have always had the 
valuable experiences connected with managing 
the social phases of their school life. The head 
mistress felt that when these active, interested 
girls went into the class-room they became pass- 
sive, learning by rote without any vital use of 
their own wills and intelligences. Too much em- 
phasis was placed on the facts they learned, and 
too little on the mental habits they acquired in 
learning them. The class-room machinery made 
it impossible to alter conditions to meet individ- 
ual needs or special occasions to any extent. 
Every girl in the class had to behave like every 



STREATHAM COUNTY SCHOOL 97 

other in her rate of study, in her reactions to 
the lessons. In order to counteract the disad- 
vantages of this way of learning for the girls 
on whom they are most severe, that is, the rapid 
brilliant worker and the slow or uneven pupil, 
she devised a ' ' natural method. ' ' Special pupils 
who needed to catch up in some one subject, or 
who were ambitious to save time were given sup- 
plementary lessons. They were promoted as 
rapidly as they mastered the extra work to the 
teachers' satisfaction. 

But this method did not meet all the needs for 
individual adjustments. The average students, 
the majority of the school, were working under 
the usual conditions of herd learning. The few 
w^ho were working by the natural method had 
difficulties because the school machinery was not 
arranged for them. They worked on their indi- 
vidual courses of study in the study halls. They 
were dependent on the help of whatever teacher 
happened to be in the hall during their free 
time. So few pupils were working on this plan 
that they were easily confused and discouraged. 
Although the plan benefited individual cases of 
maladjustment, it was hard to administer, and 



98 THE DALTON LABORATORY PLAN 

did little to change the spirit and habits of study 
of the whole school. 

The head mistress read in the Educational 
Supplement of the Times a description of the 
Dalton Laboratory Plan. In it, she recognized 
the opportunity to give all her pupils the intel- 
lectual advantages that come with individual 
study. For the last month of the school year, 
the classes that have taken the university exam- 
inations work on a free program. They come to 
school, but spend the day in studying, reading 
and games, very much as they choose. The plan 
was explained to them, and it was suggested that 
they try it for the month. The aim was twofold ; 
to give these older classes more worth-while ex- 
periences than they sometimes got during this 
month without interfering with their freedom; 
and, if the experiment worked, to have a nucleus 
of school leaders who understood the plan and 
knew how to work under it to assist in a com- 
plete re-organization. 

The assignments for this trial month were 
made more or less individual. Courses were 
mapped out for students with subject weak- 
nesses to help them get up to standard. Supple- 
mentary assignments were given girls who 



STREATHAM COUNTY SCHOOL 99 

showed special aptitude or interest in a subject. 
Others did assignments in reading, covering 
about the ground they would have in any case, 
except that they started with an organized plan 
and had free access to their teachers. The 
month's experiment was a great success. As- 
signments were attacked with a new enthusiasm. 
Students showed an eagerness to discover and 
a thoroughness in study that is rare in the con- 
ventional class-room. It was this awakened in- 
terest and self-reliant attack that made the head 
mistress decide to continue the re-organization 
of the school the following year. 

Wheii school re-opened in the fall, the older 
classes continued under the laboratory plan and 
the forms down to twelve years old began on it. 
At Christmas time, the eleven-year-old girls be- 
gan their free programs, and in the early spring, 
the youngest pupils, the ten-year-olds, began. 
At present the entire school of over 700 girls are 
working under the plan. 

The students spend about the same time in 
free study and in class as those in the Dalton 
High School, instead of the maximum set as the 
ideal by Miss Parkhurst. The arrangement of 
time is different. Monday, Wednesday and Fri- 



100 THE DALTON LABORATORY PLAN 

day mornings are set apart for individual study 
and tutorial work. Tuesday and Thursday 
mornings are spent in class work. The after- 
noons are devoted to special subjects, cooking, 
drawing, needle-work and recreation and games. 
Only the very exceptional student can finish her 
work in the free study time. The average girl 
has to spend practically the same amount of 
time on home work she would under the usual 
school organization. The three types of records 
recommended by Miss Parkhurst have not as yet 
been used. Neither are the monthly assignments 
divided into weekly portions. Instead, a detailed 
syllabus for a month with the problems defi- 
nitely specified and including many questions is 
given the pupils. At the end of the month, a test 
is given every class on the ground covered by 
the syllabus. Each girl is expected to pass these 
tests before she starts the syllabi for the next 
month. The detailed questions set in these tests 
are relied on to check the thoroughness of the 
work. 

Like the High School in Dalton, the Streatham 
School re-organized with no idea of changing 
curriculum or course of study. On the contrary, 
the primary purpose of both schools is the prep- 



STREATHAM COUNTY SCHOOL 101 

aration of pupils for higher professional train- 
ing. And in England, as in America, the scope 
of this preparation is exactly defined by the 
higher schools. What both principals wanted 
was a school set up in such a manner as to enable 
their pupils to carry out this prescribed course 
of study more efficiently and with greater profit 
in the way of establishing mental habits and 
developing personal qualities. Since both schools 
have had at least the success they had before 
in completing their course of study, and in en- 
abling their pupils to pass into professional 
schools, there is little doubt that the laboratory 
machinery is fitted to do the work of the con- 
ventionally organized school. 

What besides this does it accomplish? 

We have reviewed the values found by the 
American principal. The English school reports 
the same kind of gains. The students at 
Streatham have more self-reliance now than 
they had under the old plan. By removing the 
artificial props of class discipline, daily recita- 
tions, and minute assignments, the girls are 
forced to stand on their own feet; and so to 
develop self-reliance. They are no longer pas- 
sive sponges for absorbing facts, but research 



102 THE DALTON LABORATORY PLAN 

workers, each investigating and experimenting 
and doing hard work to complete their con- 
tracts. The plan of having the subject library in 
the laboratory has proved a great stimulus to in- 
dependent work. The books are at hand, so they 
are used and their use brings the students a new 
interest and wider outlook on the subject. At 
first, the pupils spoke with some surprise of 
their interest in these supplementary and refer- 
ence books. As they have grown accustomed to 
the plan, they accept these libraries as oppor- 
tunities to satisfy their developing curiosities. 

The school is formulating a definite procedure 
for the laboratory plan. The head mistress be- 
lieves that a school should not expect to make 
quite the usual progress in extent the first term 
under the plan, but that this loss will be more 
than compensated by a new thoroughness in 
grasping subjects, and that after the first 
months, the students will cover the usual ground 
and keep their gains in intensive studying. 

She also believes that the plan should not be 
used as a time-saving device to shorten the time 
spent in school except in rare instances. In- 
stead, members of a class should be kept to- 
gether. The assignments should cover the min- 



STREATHAM COUNTY SCHOOL 103 

imum fundamentals of the subject and supple- 
mentary WQrk be done according to the ability 
of the individual pupil to save time on the mini- 
mum month's work. 

During the first few weeks on the plan, most 
of the time of the classes was spent in general 
preliminary work. It is necessary to teach pupils 
who have habitually been dependent on the 
direction and judgment of a teacher independent 
habits of work. They must learn criteria for 
good work, how to study, and how to check 
their own work so it will not get sloppy. In 
order to prevent pupils from stopping work at 
the first difficulty or question and idly waiting 
for a chance to consult the teacher, the classes 
were taught to make notes of questions or to ask 
a neighbor and go on worldng, until they can go 
to the teacher with a whole block of work. 

All the departments make careful plans for 
keeping track of each pupil without requiring 
too much written work. Group work is encour- 
aged. If groups do not form naturally, teachers 
make them by assigning girls at about the same 
stage and rate of work to study together. A 
general explanation is not made for one pupil 
alone unless she is backward or the circum- 



104 THE DALTON LABORATORY PLAN 

stances are unusual. Instead, other members of 
the class that are in the laboratory are asked to 
come to the desk at the same time, and the whole 
group discuss the point. For help with details 
or special questions, the pupil is sent to another 
girl or group the teacher knows to be further 
advanced. When a considerable amount of writ- 
ten work is necessary, it is made less routine by 
having pupils correct one another's papers or by 
correcting by sample. The latter method is 
especially satisfactory for papers answering 
specific questions or dealing with concrete prob- 
lem. Here the teacher selects the paper of a 
pupil who expresses herself easily and clearly, 
corrects it in detail and then posts it on the class 
bulletin board. The rest of the class are held 
responsible for correcting their papers from it. 
Where adjustment to the new plan seems diffi- 
cult, times can be set when only pupils of a cer- 
tain class can get help. Others can come into 
the room to study, but cannot ask for help. In 
special cases with either a slow pupil or a dif- 
ficult subject, a definite time can be assigned for 
a short lesson with a small group. A twenty 
minute lesson to a small group, all having the 



STREATHAM COUNTY SCHOOL 106 

same problems, is more satisfactory in straight- 
ening out difficulties than a full lesson with a 
large class. Many apparent difficulties are 
avoided through the preparation given during 
the regular class meetings. The head mistress 
believes that the opportunities for discussion of 
new topics or of difficulties, and for individual 
reports are further reasons for keeping the 
whole class more or less together. 

Modern languages have proved the most dif- 
ficult subjects to adjust to the new plan in the 
Streatham School, as they have at Dalton. The 
reasons have been the same; the need for oral 
drill and the pupil's inability to detect his own 
mistakes. Mathematics and science fitted in 
with the fewest changes. A minimum of class 
meetings are held for these subjects. In science, 
they are largely taken up with cautions and in- 
structions in how to work. 

The head mistress has a few cautions to sug- 
gest to new schools adopting the plan. A good 
deal of time, especially at first, must be spent in 
discussion of the system with pupils and in giv- 
ing help in methods of work and in keeping up 
to standard. The greatest difficulty lies in hav- 



106 THE DALTON LABORATORY PLAN 

ing adequate information about each pupil when 
the pupil unit per teacher is from one to two 
hundred. Teachers should not allow pupils to 
wait for help ; it wastes time ; is contrary to the 
spirit of the plan, and when they stand and wait 
near the teacher's desk, they overhear others' 
difficulties and may get confused or muddled. 
With thoughtful attention to new problems as 
they arise, she believes that difficulties will be no 
greater than with the usual organization. 

After twelve months on the plan, the school 
finds its adjustment to difficulties is all in the 
direction of Miss Parkhurst's original plan. 
The monthly tests given on the completion of 
each syllabus are no longer used. The three 
types of graphs have been substituted as a bet- 
ter method of keeping track of individual prog- 
ress. The weekly graph is arranged by houses 
instead of classes. More and more scope is 
being allowed the girls for free work. As the 
radical transformation of school habits and atti- 
tudes brought about by the plan becomes evi- 
dent, the teachers are accepting their responsi- 
bility as educational pioneers and attempting to 
develop the plan's fundamental pedagogical ad- 



STREATHAM COUNTY SCHOOL 107 

vantages as well as to get the students through 
the syllabi. The school has become a demon- 
stration for a new and better way to learn and 
to build character. Visitors flock there, and 
numbers of schools are adopting the plan. 



CHAPTER VI 

Opinions of Teachees and Pupils 

The teachers and pupils of the Streatham 
County Secondary School have answered a ques- 
tionnaire on the first year's work under their 
modification of the Dalton Laboratory Plan. 
The teachers expressed opinions ranging from 
warm support to unqualified disapproval. They 
were asked about the effect of the plan on the 
teaching of their own subjects, not for opinions 
on its general educational value. 

The conclusions reached by these teachers are 
similar to those expressed by Mr. Jackman (see 
Chapter IV). The history and geography teach- 
ers report the fewest difficulties in adapting the 
plan. The language teachers were least satis- 
fied with the results of the new way of working. 
The mathematics and science teachers had to 
make a minimum of changes in their way of 
working and found the plan an improvement on 
the whole. 

108 



OPINIONS OF TEACHERS AND PUPILS 109 

Certain general points were rather uniformly 
brought out by the teachers. The plan had been 
adopted in modified form. The essential fea- 
tures in the changes seem to be, for the teachers, 
the fact that the assignments were given as com- 
plete and detailed syllabi and that monthly tests 
were used instead of term examinations, thus 
isolating the month ^s work as a separate unit. 
A number thought that this was bad for the 
pupil's grasp of the whole subject, and for the 
continuity of the year 's course. Cramming for 
the test tended to make the girls more conscious 
of learning isolated facts. This test became the 
standard of work. A number reported that they 
made those tests as detailed and specific as pos- 
sible in order to check up on the girls ' thorough- 
ness. This would suggest that the tendency to 
cram might not be inherent in the plan, but per- 
haps the result of the specific methods the teach- 
ers have tried in adjusting to it. The monthly 
tests have now been given up and these specific 
difficulties have largely disappeared. Nearly all 
the teachers agreed that the pupils tend to shirk 
details more under the plan. The instructors, 
however, pointed out that this is a natural fault 
which must be met in any system. 



no THE D ALTON LABORATORY PLAN 

The plan seems to have made several teachers 
more conscious of the necessity for small classes 
and adequate books and equipment. If the pupils 
are to get the full benefits of their free study 
time, the pupil unit should be small enough so 
that the teacher can become acquainted with 
each girl and keep track of her work. The lab- 
oratory must be well stocked with books and 
materials so that pupils can carry on research 
and reference work and find plenty of things to 
do as well as books to read. 

Some of the teachers^ discussions of the plan 
are given. It should be noted that two teachers, 
one in Latin and one in French, condemned the 
plan as a whole; otherwise the examples are 
typical. 

^^The Streatham scheme of study, which is 
based on the Dalton Plan, has been in operation 
less than a year so that all comparisons between 
it and the former method of continuous class 
teaching can be stated in only very tentative 
terms. In Mathematics, the results seem to be 
the same as they would normally have been. 
There is practically no difference in ground cov- 
ered or in standard attained. There is one point, 
however, which the new plan emphasizes in a 
way the old did not — the direct relation between 
effort and result. This seems, perhaps, the 



OPINIONS OF TEACHERS AND PUPILS 111 

real ^hidden virtue^ of the scheme. Indifferent 
or mentally lazy girls can follow, more or less, a 
well taught lesson and can then work straight- 
forward examples fairly successfully without 
any real effort. The results, such as they are, 
are due to the mistress's energy and the pupils' 
passivity. A distinct effort of concentration is 
needed before the average girl can grasp a gen- 
eral statement as expounded in a text-book, and 
its application involves still further close atten- 
tion. With few exceptions, unless a girl really 
tries, she makes literally no progress under the 
new plan. 

^ ' The organization of material in Mathematics 
presents no new problems. So far, we have 
worked on exactly the same General School 
Syllabus that we used hitherto. In this, the 
work to be covered in a year is stated and def- 
inite points to be mastered allocated to the 
different terms. Formerly, the mistress gave a 
series of lessons with this program in view. 
Now, the children also see the program and the 
work is covered between lessons and free study 
time. 

^^In Mathematics, I find my tendency is to 
encourage the children very definitely to use 
only certain specified text-books. It is a subject 
in which ^method' is everything, especially to 
youthful and elementary students. There are 
comparatively few text-books which can be 
trusted, and one might almost say the discrim- 
ination of children as regards rival methods can 
never be trusted. 



112 THE DALTON LABORATORY PLAN 

*^The fixed lesson periods I use mainly for 
explanation of new material for the senior girls : 
this practically means a lecture on a part of the 
syllabus not yet done by them. 

^*A certain amount of discussion may take 
place during a lesson, but the sets we teach are 
too large, and in some cases not sufficiently of 
one standard, for such discussion to be really 
profitable. 

^ ' The main difficulty in Mathematics is in in- 
suring that the children use good methods in 
working out exercises, whether in Algebra, 
Arithmetic or Geometry. Formerly, most of the 
work on these subjects was done under the mis- 
tress's direct supervision. During the first 
months, I found many of the children w^orked 
out many more examples than they would for- 
merly have done. This was to be encouraged. 
They were provided with answer copies to avoid 
waste of time in corrections. A child who did 
one or two sums of a certain type and could not 
get them right, at once came for help. The 
theory was then explained and good methods 
were emphasized, but the case of those who 
achieved the correct answers was different. 
Sometimes, a file would be handed in containing 
a large number of sums with correct answers 
but worked out by unmathematical or clumsy 
methods — ^methods in which the pupil had be- 
come expert. To avoid this, I set a month's 
syllabus and divide the work to be handed in 
into so much each week. Most children, espe- 
cially those fairly good at the subject, do hand 



OPINIONS OF TEACHERS AND PUPILS 113 

in their file week by week, but to enforce this 
would be merely to set weekly syllabi with an 
almost definite time-table/' 

^ ^ The girls have all the advantages gained by 
wide reading. The history library is in the sub- 
ject room, and they come and borrow the books 
suggested in the syllabus, or others they may 
discover themselves. 

^^ Under the old system, they had one outline 
text-book and a book of documents, and had little 
opportunity in school of reading biography, 
travels, etc. 

^^On the whole, more ground is covered in a 
given time. 

^^The lazy or weak children become more ob- 
vious to the mistress. They can no longer 
scrape through a terminal by memorising les- 
sons, and are bound to attempt individual work. 
After a preliminary failure, these children seem 
to gain in power as time goes on. A very small 
percentage (about six of the 150 girls I meet) 
remain unsatisfactory. 

^^It is easier to organize material, since many 
aspects of a period, viz., social life, biography, 
travels, can be gathered just as well from the 
use of a library. Lesson periods can, therefore, 
be devoted to arranging more difficult material 
and putting people and events into their due 
proportion. 

^^ Given a suitable library, the children fre- 
quently use ten or a dozen different books for 
the month ^s work. Thus, they get different 



114 THE DALTON LABORATORY PLAN 

points of view and fresh aspects of truth. This 
widened outlook is apparent in their written 
tests, which show an originality and freshness 
seldom seen under the old system. 

^' There is one period per week set apart for a 
history lesson in each form, but this period may 
be devoted to study or discussion and a formal 
lesson is not necessarily given each week. For 
example, forms studying the geographical dis- 
coveries of the sixteenth century, had one lesson 
on the main directions of Portugese, Spanish, 
English discoveries, etc. They read for them- 
selves the lives and achievements of individual 
discoverers. 

^^ Under the old system, a mistress teaching 
history deals with new material in a lesson, as- 
sociating closely with acquired material and de- 
veloping a sense of connection between events, 
The memorising occurs at and follows the les- 
son, and may be tested during the next lesson 
period, usually in writing. 

^^ Under the new system, the lesson material 
is seldom new to all tKe class. Consequently, 
the children have more to contribute, and wel- 
come the chance of arranging satisfactorily 
what they have gleaned for themselves. 

*'The tendency to be satisfied mth a too gen- 
eral idea and to shirk details is always present 
in children and is no more marked under the 
new system than the old. There is just as 
marked a tendency to get lost in a mass of 
details. 

**I try to meet these difficulties by careful 



OPINIONS OF TEACHERS AND PUPILS 115 

emphasis of important facts in lesson periods ; 
by careful insistence upon the presence of def- 
inite facts in written work done during the 
month; and by putting questions to individual 
children during tutorial periods, with the pur- 
pose of ascertaining their grasp of essential 
details. 

^^The one lesson period per week is the only 
time when I meet a class as a whole. Otherwise, 
I see them as individuals when my room is open 
for tutorial work. Then guidance is given in 
reading, difficulties discussed, and written work 
examined. 

^^If the syllabus is carefully drawn up, the 
lessons well arranged and the text-books satis- 
factory, the difficulties encountered by the chil- 
dren in this subject are not numerous and vary 
with each child. There is little need for group 
consultation. 

^'Difficulties peculiar to this subject are first, 
the old one of reading without understanding, 
and a tendency to copy written work, whole sen- 
tences or phrases, from books. 

^'I have endeavored to meet the situation by 
setting written work which demands attention 
to and selection from material used; by ques- 
tions to individual children during tutorial 
periods ; and by setting test questions which test 
understanding as well as memory. 

^'On the whole, this subject gains enormously 
from this new system of work.'^ 

*^ History and geography adapt themselves to 



116 THE DALTON LABORATORY PLAN 

the scheme very well — the difficulties which arise 
are not those of the scheme itself, but exterior 
circumstances. The lack of material — ^maps, 
books, is a real difficulty. The number of books 
essential to have for use and reference makes 
the scheme an expensive one — the brighter chil- 
dren are constantly hampered for lack of more 
material to work upon. 

^^ Another difficulty is due to great numbers. 
Exercises set on the work done are not carefully 
thought out unless help is given in a previous 
lesson. This would not occur if there were more 
time to devote to fewer pupils. The monthly 
test is regarded by the pupils as the standard 
upon which their work is judged, and this entails 
on their part a ^cramming' of a minimum of 
material to reach this standard — not a desire to 
work carefully at the subject for its own sake/' 

^^The majority of my girls have decidedly in- 
creased their powers of understanding about the 
problems of plant growth and structure. Where 
interest is sustained, the memory is kept in 
order without appreciable effort. In each form, 
we have some slackers who^f anything — do 
worse under the Dalton plan. I attempt to 
counter the evil by persistent attempts to arouse 
interest. Given an initial interest which grips, 
I find little difficulty in arousing attention to 
details afterwards. 

^^In the upper forms, the lesson periods are 
sometimes given over to lectures, sometimes to 
class discussion, and of course new material is 



OPINIONS OF TEACHERS AND PUPILS 117 

always explained. In the lower forms, the 
periods are used for oral instruction with aid of 
blackboard and hand specimens. The ground 
covered is, as far as possible, in advance of the 
private study scheme, i.e., precedes it by at least 
a week, but there is some unavoidable overlap- 
ping.'^ 

^^I have found the result of our new plan in 
Science to be as follows : keen and hard-working 
girls often become more interested in the subject 
than under the old system, as they enjoy finding 
things out for themselves, and devising experi- 
ments. 

^^In some cases, the girl of average intelli- 
gence suddenly shows more interest in her work 
on the new system, as she finds her own par- 
ticular difficulties can be dealt with and this 
encourages her. 

^^If, however, a girl of this mental calibre is 
inclined to be lazy, she often wastes time at the 
beginning of the month, and then towards the 
end, makes a fruitless effort to complete the 
syllabus by the end of the month. 

^'With few exceptions. I find that the girl with 
little ability, especially if she is lazy, does not 
do so well u^nder the new system. 

^ ^ The strain upon the teacher is undoubtedly 
greater on this system, and instead of expending 
her energies largely on the hard-working girls, 
where it is likely to bear most fruit, she feels 
impelled to expend a great deal on the lazy girls 
who try to evade her, and who will probably 



118 THE D ALTON LABORATORY PLAN 

benefit little from her instruction. This danger 
is one against which she needs to guard very 
carefully. 

^^When we first adopted this system, I found 
some difficulty in the organization of material. 
I feel that this was largely because the system 
was new to the pupils and to me. 

^'At first, I found that the syllabi which I set 
were too long, and also that they, and the tests 
which followed them, were not ahvays expressed 
in the most helpful way for the girls. The ma- 
jority of the pupils also were awkward with 
their new tools at first. 

^^The scheme is not altogether popular with 
them now, but I do not think that this shows that 
it is not the best thing for them. A great many 
of them dislike it because it means more ar- 
rangement and planning for them, than under 
the old system, and they, through laziness, would 
rather have this done for them. 

' ' The pupils whom I take for Science have no 
textbook. 

^^I give them one definite lesson per week, in 
which I deal with the parts of the syllabus which 
I consider will present difficulty to a girl work- 
ing alone. 

''I give the girls notes on important points, 
and expect them to write up notes on all the new 
work done in the lesson. They also write up 
notes on the practical work which they do them- 
selves. 

^^The pupils often get a more general grasp 
of the subject under this system, and do not 



OPINIONS OF TEACHERS AND PUPILS 119 

regard the subject as a collection of isolated 
facts as they are inclined to do, if they are given 
formal lessons only on the subject. 

^'It should be remembered, however, that 
under the old system, we aimed at continuity in 
our lessons. 

^^I have observed a very great tendency to be 
satisfied with too general ideas. I find that a 
great number of the girls shirk not only details, 
but also important points which offer difiiculty 
to them. 

^^I try to combat it by the following methods : 
Making the girls write up full notes on all the 
work done; dealing with points, which have 
offered difficulties to many girls in fixed lessons; 
making pupils deal with their individual diffi- 
culties under my supervision in free study 
periods. 

^^I use my fixed lesson periods for the follow- 
ing: 

1. Checking the pupils' observations 
which they have made when working alone. 

2. Discussing the results they have ob- 
tained. 

3. Dealing with matters which have pre- 
sented general difficulty. 

4. Helping the pupils to draw correct con- 
clusions from the practical work which they 
have done. For this questioning is used 
largely. 

5. Imparting new facts which the pupils 
could not reasonably be expected to find out 
themselves. 



120 THE DALTON LABORATORY PLAN 

6. Encouraging them to connect this new 
knowledge with their old, and if possible, 
draw new deductions from this. 

^ ' I have found these difficulties. Pupils do not 
all work at the same rate in their free study 
periods, and, therefore, it is sometimes difficult 
to give a lesson suitable for all. 

^^I have not found a really satisfactory solu- 
tion to this problem. However, I try to over- 
come it by paying special attention to the slow 
and backward girls, when they are working in 
the laboratory in their free study periods, in 
order to raise them to the average level. I have 
also found it advisable to give the quick girls 
extra experiments to perform and problems to 
solve on the part of the syllabus at which the 
rest of the class are still working. 

^^I have found the large number of girls in 
some of the science divisions rather a difficulty. 
I am trying to overcome this by means of group 
teaching in the free study periods, i.e., taking 
all the girls in the division who require help in 
one particular point together instead of sep- 
arately. I find this very helpful indeed. 

^* Pupils are likely to try to carry out experi- 
ments which are dangerous. To overcome this 
difficulty, the pupils should be required to de- 
scribe to the teacher the experiments which they 
intend to carry out." 

^^The effect of the Dalton Scheme as applied 
to the teaching of French varies, I find, with 
the stage of the pupil. 



OPINIONS OF TEACHERS AND PUPILS 121 

^^With the second year pupils, I have kept 
to the prescribed textbook. Unless one is pre- 
pared to abandon the direct method of teaching 
French and to revert to translation methods, 
the pupil cannot at this stage, break any new 
ground for himself. His pace is, therefore, reg- 
ulated by the amount that can be covered by the 
teacher in recitation periods and his individual 
work consists of consolidating that by exercises, 
learning by heart, etc. Any attempts I have 
made to let these young people break ground 
for themselves in reading, grammar, or the 
study of verbs have met with little success, 
and have necessitated the difficult task of un- 
learning. 

^^The weaker pupils are often content with 
a vague general understanding of the matter 
read. Surprisingly few questions were asked 
about the text that was being studied, and these 
usually just as to the meaning of a word. Many 
of the girls seemed to be unable to pick out a 
detail worth observing — the idiomatic use of a 
word, for instance. 

' ' To counteract a tendency to inaccuracy with 
the younger ones, I tried the keeping of vocabu- 
lary and verb notebooks. This was useful, but 
required supervision, for which the time was 
lacking. 

^^ Class meetings were held as follows: Sec- 
ond year pupils, three lessons of forty-five min- 
utes ; fifth year pupils, two lessons of forty-five 
minutes. For the younger pupils, the time was 
almost entirely used in going over new material, 



122 THE DALTON LABORATORY PLAN 

with some oral work. For the fifth year stu- 
dents, the recitation hour was devoted one week, 
to explanatory lectures and English-French 
translation; the following Aveek, to practice in 
grammar work and discussion of subjects for 
composition. 

^^Oral work is neglected. There is too little 
time for it in the lessons. I quite failed to keep 
a ^French atmosphere' in the laboratory. 

^^ Especially with the younger pupils, there is 
a tendency, when working away from the 
teacher, to slip back into English sounds and 
English forms of thought and to have continual 
recourse to translation. I do not know whether 
to attribute an epidemic of French dictionaries 
amongst the second year girls to this or not.'^ 

The first question asked the pupils was : What 
have been the advantages of the Dalton Plan 
over the usual school system for you? A few 
children said they had not been benefited at all, 
in fact did not like the plan so well. The most 
frequently mentioned advantage was the free 
time table that enabled them to arrange their 
day as they chose and especially to save time 
on their strong subjects to put on their weak 
ones. The next most frequently noted advan- 
tage was the opportunity to get the teacher's 
help in study time as they needed it. This they 
said increased their interest and enabled them 



OPINIONS OF TEACHERS AND PUPILS 123 

to do more and better work. A number of 
pupils said they did more reading because the 
books were at hand. Many of them mentioned 
their growth in self-reliance and independence. 

The second question was: Is it harder or 
easier for you to do your work than before? 
Is there a difference between subjects and 
teachers in this respect? 

The majority of pupils reported that some 
subjects were easier and some harder than be- 
fore. Not enough instances were given, how- 
ever, to discern whether these subjects were 
the same for all the pupils. A few chil- 
dren reported that all their studying was 
easier, and a number that it was all harder, 
but that they did it better. Several of the older 
pupils said that there was a marked difference 
in teachers in this respect. 

The third question was: Do your lesson 
periods help you in your free time or do you 
sometimes feel there is not enough connection 
between the two? 

Most of the answers were in the affirmative. 
The class meetings did give the necessary help 
for the understanding of their syllabi, and 
where it did not they could get the additional 



124 THE DALTON LABORATORY PLAN 

assistance from the teachers in the free study 
time. English seemed to be the one exception 
to this. Some pupils said the connection be- 
tween the class work and study was not always 
clear. 

The fourth question was: Is your general 
grasp of the term^s w^ork in a subject increased 
under the plan? Are you ever tempted to shirk 
details or do you work more thoroughly? 

The first part of the question was evidently 
vague to the girls. The majority of the answers 
were not definite enough to give any impression 
of the pupils' idea of their grasp of the work. 
The second part was answered with an ap- 
parent contradiction in the great majority of 
cases. They agreed vath the teachers that they 
were tempted to shirk details but added that 
their work was more thoroughly done. The an- 
swers of the more articulate children would in- 
dicate that they meant an affirmative answer to 
the first part of the question. Their interest 
and general grasp of the subject was increased, 
but they tended to slur over details for the 
large thread. 

The fifth question was: Have you lost in- 
terest in any subject; have you lost your dis- 



OPINIONS OF TEACHERS AND PUPILS 125 

taste for any subject? The answers to this were 
too varied to have any marked significance. 
More pupils reported losing their former dis- 
tastes, however, than losing interests. In view 
of the teacher 's statement about French, one in- 
teresting group of answers was found. A num- 
ber of girls reported that they had lost their 
distaste for French and almost none reported 
liking it less than before. The following an- 
swers can not be considered typical of the sev- 
eral hundred received, as they are more explicit, 
but they are given because they emphasize some 
of the points made by many of the pupils. 

^^One learns more thoroughly, finding out 
facts for oneself. Other than this, I do not 
think there are any advantages. 

^^It is much harder to do the work, because 

(a) you do not have so much help as before; 

(b) you do not seem to have so much time as it 
takes longer to do the work yourself. 

^^My lesson periods do help me in my free- 
time work, because nearly always a difficulty is 
explained. But, in English for instance, I do not 
think there is enough connection between the 
two. 

^^My general grasp of the term's work in a 
subject has not increased under the plan. I 
think I work more thoroughly, because more in- 
terest is taken. 



126 THE DALTON LABORATORY PLAN 



^^I have not lost interest in any subject. 
*^I do not like History so much under this 
plan.'' 

^^I have gained in that I have been able to 
pull up my weakest subject, although I have 
sometimes found that I have let other subjects 
slip for this special one. Also, I feel more self- 
reliant, for example, with regard to home-work. 

^^ Generally, I find it easier to do the work, 
since I can take time to go over a thing till I 
can understand it, but after, I find I am behind 
when the examinations come. 

^^My week's work in most cases depends en- 
tirely upon the lessons given and those which 
do not are given up to the explaining of our 
difficulties and since there are rarely more than 
five at a lesson we find them most helpful. 

^'I think that I get through just the same 
amount of work, although in Math I do more 
examples. 

^^My general grasp of the subject has not 
been increased. 

^^I have lost interest in none of my subjects. 

^^I have lost my distaste for one subject." 

^^I can more thoroughly grasp the subject at 
which I am working. It enables me to clean up 
any difficult points by puzzling and solving them 
myself. More time can be given a weaker 
subject. 

' ' I find my work easier in French, geography 
and history, but harder in English. 



OPINIONS OF TEACHERS AND PUPILS 127 

*^ Lessons in most subjects are helpful. 

^^The grasp of the work in the syllabus is 
increased. There is not a sufficiently long time 
of study to attempt to go into many details in 
a subject. The work done is certainly done 
more thoroughly. 

^^I have lost interest in drawing. 

^^Lost a little distaste for French.'' 

*^ There is the advantage of being able to 
carry on with one subject without being inter- 
rupted by another lesson. 

* ^ It is harder in general, but I find geography 
easier. 

^^On the whole the lessons do help with the 
free-time work. 

^^In most subjects, my general grasp of them 
is increased but in one or two, such as history, 
it is not. In most cases, I work more thor- 
oughly as it is interesting to find out the details 
for oneself and when they are found I remem- 
ber them better. 

^^No. Not very interested in history, 

*^Yes. French." 

^^The advantage of the Dalton system is that 
we learn the work by ourselves and obtain a 
better grasp of a subject, also we have a whole 
afternoon for games. 

^^It is easier to work than before, although 
there seems more work to do. 

*^ Lessons help a great deal in free-time work, 
and I always feel there is some connection be- 
tween the two. 



128 THE DALTON LABORATORY PLAN 

*^The general grasp in all siibjecls is in- 
creased, but in some subjects I am inclined to 
shirk, in other subjects I am a little more thor- 
ough. 

^^I have lost interest in one subject, geog- 
raphy, but I have lost my distaste for two 
subjects, geometry and French.'' 

^^The advantages of the system are more 
time for working at weak subjects and oppor- 
tunities for wider study of most interesting sub- 
jects. 

^^It is easier in some subjects but harder in 
the weakest subjects. Subjects and teachers 
make a great difference. 

^^The lesson periods do help in the free-time 
work. I always find enough connection between 
the two. 

<<My general grasp of a subject is not in- 
creased. In subjects that I do not like, I am 
tempted to shirk details, in some subjects I 
work more thoroughly. 

^^Yes, in Physics. Yes, I have lost my dis- 
taste for French because I can do it better than 
before.'' 

^^The Dalton plan has taught me to study 
much more carefully and take a wide view of 
things when reading. It has taught me to rely 
more on myself and to glean knowledge from 
more books than I did in the old system. 

^^I think this system makes the girls work 
harder for themselves, especially in Mathe- 



OPINIONS OF TEACHERS AND PUPILS 129 

matics and Science (Physics, Chemistry and 
Botany). But it is much easier to learn Eng- 
lish, Geography and History, In my opinion, 
there is no difference between subjects and 
teachers. 

^^The lesson periods help me very consider- 
ably, especially in Mathematics. 

^'My general grasp of the term's work is 
much greater in Geography, History and French 
and Physics. 

^^I think it makes one work much more thor- 
oughly and not to shirk details. 

^^I have not lost any interest in any subject 
but rather increased it. 

^^I have lost my once-strong distaste for 
Arithmetic and Algebra.'' 

^^ There are not many advantages for me in 
the Dalton plan. I prefer the usual plan, but 
I think I have a better general grasp of the 
term's work than before, and I understand some 
subjects, such as Mathematics, better. 

^ ^ It is harder to do the work than before this 
system. 

'^In languages, there is a difference betw^een 
teachers and subjects. 

^^The lesson periods help in History, Mathe- 
matics and Chemistry, but in English they do 
not help very much. 

*^At times, it is hard not to shirk details in 
the work." 

^^One advantage I have discovered is that you 
have to read more deeply to understand a thing. 



130 THE DALTON LABORATORY PLAN 

and that yon have to think more. Yon are able 
to obtain more advice from mistresses. 

^^I find that some subjects are mnch easier 
and others just a little harder. Yes, there is a 
little difference between subjects and mistresses 
in this respect. 

^^I find that the lesson periods are a great 
help as regards my work in the free periods 
and there is a large connection between the two. 

^^ Under this plan I find that I grasp a subject 
much firmer than under that of the old system ; 
also I find that it is much more thorough under 
this plan — sometimes after the exams I feel as 
though I must slack. 

^^I find that in drawing I was much more in- 
terested than I am now, but that is the only one. 
In French and Mathematics I have lost my dis- 
taste and have a firmer grasp on both. ' ^ 

''It has helped us to get on by ourselves and 
will prepare us for the time w^hen we go to col- 
lege. • It has trained us in self-reliance. 

''It is harder, sometimes, because if we can 
not do a piece of work and there is no study 
time, we have to wait for a lesson. 

"The lesson periods help considerably. 

"My grasp of the subjects is increased. 

' ' On the whole, I work more thoroughly, but 
sometimes we think we will do it tomorrow, but 
with the usual system it has to be done.^' 

"With the Dalton Plan, I feel we can learn 
more thoroughly. Somehow, we seem to have 



OPINIONS OF TEACHERS AND PUPILS 131 

more time for learning, and we seem to concen- 
trate more on onr work. 

^^I think that on the whole it is easier for 
me to do my work than before because the sub- 
jects I find are most difficult I can do in school 
and the easier ones I can do at home. 

^^The lesson periods help me a great deal, be- 
cause in the different lessons the syllabi are 
explained and notes given which are sometimes 
connected with and are part of the syllabi. 

^^I do not think that the general grasp of the 
term's work is increased. I seem to learn the 
work in one subject one month thoroughly and 
then the next month with a new syllabus, I seem 
to forget the first month's work. 

^^I am inclined some months to shirk details. 

*^I have not lost interest in any of the sub- 
jects. 

^^I have lost my distaste for one subject which 
I used almost to hate.'' 

^^The advantage of the Dalton Plan is more 
work is done individually. 

^ ^ It is harder for me to do the work now than 
before. 

^^My lessons help me a great deal in my free 
time work, although sometimes I feel that I 
should like more lessons. 

<<My general grasp of the term's work is not 
increased at all under the Dalton Plan. I am 
often tempted to shirk the details. 

^^I have lost interest in three subjects. 

^^I have not lost distaste in any subject." 



CHAPTER VII 

The Childben 's Univeksity School 

Two modifications of the Laboratory Plan 
that have been nsed in large public secondary 
schools have been described. The Children's 
University School, a small private school in 
New York City, is carrying out the plan in its 
complete form. Here Miss Parkhurst has been 
free to experiment with school organization to 
meet the needs of child psychology and to 
change the conventional curriculum according 
to her conception of educational theory. 

For the past two years, 1919-1920 and 1920- 
1921, children from nine to fourteen years old, 
those in the five upper grades have been work- 
ing on a free program. The school has an eight 
months' year and is in session from 8:45 to 4 
o'clock. This is desirable especially in a big 
city, if the school is to be a real community 
where the children lead a complete life. With 

132 



CHILDREN'S UNIVERSITY SCHOOL 133 

the shorter day, every moment of school must 
be taken up with academic subjects. The pupils 
then go to other environments, other teachers 
or schools for their recreation and for special 
lessons, music, French, dancing or gymnasium 
and sports. Or they spend their afternoons in 
city streets and parks where there are no op- 
portunities for creative play and worth-while 
experiences. Such varied and complicated pro- 
grams are bad for growing children. It is im- 
possible to make sure that the mental habits so 
carefully fostered in the morning are not broken 
down in the afternoon by teachers with differ- 
ent methods and ideals. Too varied experiences 
and a minutely supervised day lead to nervous 
strain and premature sophistication in young 
people. If the school day and environment are 
arranged to give the child social activities and 
valuable practical experiences, he can lead the 
natural continuous life necessary to establish 
right mental habits and good social adjust- 
ments. 

Miss Parkhurst^s school has teacher special- 
ists for the academic subjects and for music 
and dancing, art, carpentry, gymnastics and 
playground work. Academic work, including 



134 THE DALTON LABORATORY PLAN 

science and art, is organized with free study 
and assignments. Music and recreation come 
at fixed hours in the afternoon, because this 
work is social in character and depends on 
group exercises and expression. The carpentry 
work centers around a toy shop that is open 
during certain hours, chiefly in the afternoon. 
Pupils are free to work there at any time, but 
blocks of required work are not mapped out as 
contracts to be completed at a certain time. 
Instead, the teacher helps individuals or groups 
carry out plans she has suggested or approved. 
At present, the school is working on the 
schedule suggested for the Laboratory Plan in 
Chapter I. Pupils work in the subject labora- 
tories on their contracts until noon. Then fol- 
lows one hour of group work ; half an hour for 
committee meetings, assembly, special confer- 
ences or work on special projects, and half an 
hour for a regular grade conference in a dif- 
ferent subject each day. The noon recess is 
from twelve to one, when a hot lunch is served 
for pupils who can not go home. The afternoon 
program for work in the studio and toy shop 
and for athletics is on a free program. The art 
conference, music and organized games come at 



CHILDREN'S UNIVERSITY SCHOOL 135 

fixed times on certain days. Class excursions to 
parks, museums, exhibitions or factories are 
taken in the afternoon as they seem desirable 
to supplement class studies. Classes and labor- 
atories are managed wholly through the 
teacher's intimate knowledge of each pupil, pos- 
sible with small classes, and through the three 
records described in Chapter IL 

It was suggested above that Miss Parkhurst 
believes conditions of work for children are 
more important than the particular set of facts 
organized in a course of study for a school. She 
says: ^^The curriculum should vary with the 
needs of the pupils. Just what shall be put in 
or left out will be a matter of prolonged debate 
until the educational world awakes to the fact 
that the curriculum is not the problem of chief 
concern. Conditions are necessary which, if 
understood, will remove the obstacles in the 
learner's path and make him gratefully appre- 
ciative of assistance given by teachers. The 
conditions pupils live and work under are the 
chief factor in any environment. The environ- 
ment must create these conditions for soul 
growth. They must be social and for the good 
of society. There must be the give and take of 



136 THE DALTON LABORATORY PLAN 

social intercourse, for it is the experience at- 
tendant to the task, not the task or act in itself, 
that occasions and furthers growth. 

^^What we desire is a community environ- 
ment to supply experiences to free the native 
impulses and interests of each individual of the 
group. Any impediments in the way of native 
impulses prevent the release of pupil energy. It 
is not the creation of pupil energy, but its re- 
lease and use that is the problem of education. ' 

^^The Laboratory Plan puts emphasis on the 
way the child lives, the way he functions as a 
member of society rather than on what he does 
or the method used in doing a thing. The stim- 
ulus and food for his growth is provided in his 
community experiences. It is the sum total of 
these experiences that determine his knowledge 
and power. His energies are set free. He cor- 
rects mistakes by discovering that he can not 
obtain his self -set objective when there is a flaw 
in his plan. He must make a new plan. He 
finds it profitable to consult his fellow workers. 
Their points of view clarify his ideas and his 
procedure. The finished job takes on a halo 
because it embodies all he has felt and lived. 
This sort of studying is not pretending. It is 



CHILDREN'S UNIVERSITY SCHOOL 137 

being; not subjection but creation; it develops 
initiative and versatility. School becomes ex- 
perience. Each new opportunity and advan- 
tage is justified if it provides experiences for 
further development. ' ' 

With this point of view toward education, 
Miss Parkhurst did not concern herself with 
subject matter changes during the first year and 
a half of the school. Instead, she relied upon 
the conditions of work to free the children's 
abilities and establish right mental habits. The 
free study time enables the pupils to work under 
conditions such as prevail in the world outside 
of school. They have to plan their own time; 
work out their own problems; use reference 
books and apparatus independently; adjust to 
changing groups of fellow students. They are 
free to work at their own rate of speed but have 
to come up to certain minimum requirements. 

Inexperienced children require guidance. 
They must learn how to work. In the Children's 
University School, the subject laboratories with 
teacher specialists provide for this. They in- 
sure a quiet, orderly place where the child can 
concentrate, thus getting the necessary practice 
in self-discipline. The teacher is there to help 



138 THE DALTON LABORATORY PLAN 

with technique : to teach the proper methods for 
using a dictionary, for adding a column of fig- 
ures, drawing a map or using a plane. 

A child must also get control of the funda- 
mental tools of knowledge : reading, writing and 
arithmetic, and a certain minimum of science, 
geography and history ; to enable him to under- 
stand the world he lives in. The monthly con- 
tracts provide for this by fixing the general 
field of investigation for the pupil. They also 
insure continuity of work by demanding com- 
pletion at a certain time. They lead the child 
to new problems and higher standards and give 
an environment with new experiences and in- 
creasing complications. 

Miss Parkhurst believes the conventional cur- 
riculum can do all these things with the reor- 
ganization of the conditions for work. Like 
many progressive teachers, she also feels that 
the complexity of modern civilization makes it 
impossible to teach a child in his school life all 
the facts he is going to need. This is the ex- 
planation of her emphasis on the point that 
curriculum, the selection of facts, is unimport- 
ant compared with an opportunity for the child 
to discover a method of attack upon any prob- 



CHILDREN'S UNIVERSITY SCHOOL 139 

lem ; for her interpretation of this is unlike that 
of most teachers. Given the right conditions 
for scientific method in working, practically any 
worth-while activity that interests a child has 
educational value. 

Spontaneous interests give a greater im- 
petus to study and creativeness than set tasks. 
It is still a mooted question just what experi- 
ences and facts are most necessary for the best 
education of children. It, therefore, seems a 
legitimate experiment to be guided by the 
child's interests and curiosities in setting 
up his school environment, and so release 
his personal qualities of initiative, interest 
and effort for creation that is valuable to 
him. It should be remembered that these 
spontaneous interests are not undisciplined, 
random impulses. They develop in the school 
where the children are surrounded by an 
atmosphere of work and study and under the 
guidance of experienced teachers. Pupils had 
been working on contracts in subject labora- 
tories for twelve school months, and the teacher 
was at hand to reject the merely trivial and to 
correct gross errors in judgment. Therefore, 
when the school was ready to begin changing 



140 THE DALTON LABORATORY PLAN 

the curriculum, pupil interests, not adult analy- 
ses of what a modern curriculum should be, were 
allowed to guide the change. 

Towards the end of a month in the spring of 
1921, all the students were called together and 
asked if they would like to have their next 
month's contracts about something that each 
was particularly interested in studying. They 
were not asked to select a subject, arithmetic or 
history, for a complete month's work, but to 
list the five general topics they most wanted 
to know about in the order of their preference. 
Among the things listed were, law, flowers, 
horses, boats, astronomy, plants, bridge-build- 
ing and dancing. Instead of organizing these 
interests into single courses of study for each 
class, the experiment was tried of giving indi- 
vidual contracts closely confined to the ex- 
pressed interests. The girl who put dancing at 
the head of her list was anxious to change as 
soon as she was reminded that she would have 
to work on it steadily all day for a month. 
Children who chose closely allied topics like 
flowers and plants were grouped and given the 
same work. It was decided to let the child 
who asked for horses work on the topic. She 



CHILDREN'S UNIVERSITY SCHOOL 141 

had shown a passionate interest in them, hurry- 
ing through her lessons to go to the studio to 
draw or model horses and decorating all her 
note books with sketches. A period of concen- 
trated study seemed an opportunity to let her 
work the interest through. Each teacher made 
a subject assignment using material from the 
chosen field and involving the particular skills 
of her subject, arithmetic, reading or composi- 
tion. The geography laboratory was made the 
center for the pupil's special research. The 
teacher planned the assignments after discus- 
sion with each child, so as to enable each to 
follow out his particular interest. 

The plan was tried frankly as an experiment. 
It was not the intention to force the same topic 
on a child month after month or plan the work 
as if he were starting a period of specialization 
or intensive technical training. No special 
equipment was purchased. Instead, the child's 
investigations were confined to books and mu- 
seum trips where there was not suitable prac- 
tical apparatus in the school. The method was 
continued for the remaining two months of the 
school year. The second month there were 
fewer individual assignments. 



142 THE DALTON LABORATORY PLAN 

The work of these two months so far can not 
be called an experiment in the '^project 
method.'' The subject assignments were not 
worked out as unified projects but used the 
topic interest to motivate the usual drill. The 
children were therefore not really studying the 
subject they had chosen. Instead, material was 
taken from that subject to clothe the subject 
assignments. The geography assignments gave 
the pupils an opportunity to do enough special 
reading to answer their original curiosities. 

The experiment is still too new to be able to 
plot its advantages and peculiar problems. The 
teachers felt that the plan had increased the co- 
operation between the departments; and that 
the pupils ' interests were clarified and were led 
to new subjects rather than towards more in- 
tensive work on their first choice. The classes 
made satisfactory progress in all the drill sub- 
jects. The time taken for his contract by each 
pupil was about the same as usual, but all the 
children did more work. Motivation through 
an individual interest seemed to give a new im- 
petus to the pupils' effort and responsibility. 
The teachers feel that the tendency of this ini- 
tial stage is towards projects. The work in- 



CHILDREN'S UNIVERSITY SCHOOL 143 

volved for the teachers and the increase in 
equipment necessary to enable individuals to 
really study the subjects of their choice will, of 
course, be very great. If the method does de- 
velop into this, progress in the fundamental 
skills should be measured by the standard tests. 
This gives the teachers an objective basis for 
suggestions and guidance to pupils, facilitates 
the checking of the individual's progress, and 
increases the value of the experiment as a dem- 
onstration for other schools and teachers. 

The month's contract for the group of chil- 
dren who elected to study astronomy is given. 
It shows how simple the first step in the tran- 
sition to individualized assignments may be. 
In geography the first week's assignment was 
written by the teacher; the other assignments 
were planned by the children. 

Astronomy 
assignment in geography 

One Month 

First Week. 

I have a very interesting book for you to read 
this month : ' ' The Book of the Stars. ' ' Let us 



144 THE DALTON LABORATORY PLAN 

start with Chapter IX which tells about the 
planets. The author calls the planets ^'the 
earth's brothers and sisters.'' I suppose he 
would call the other stars the distant cousins 
of the Earth. The countless stars that make up 
the universe are cousins in the sense that all 
mankind is one big family, while the eight 
planets, including our earth, are the children of 
the Sun. 

1. What does solar system mean? What is a 
planet? Why do we notice the movements of 
the planets, while the other stars seem fixed in 
the heavens? What are the asteroids? If you 
look up the meaning of the word ^^astra" you 
will know how the little blue flower got its 
name. 

2. Using a compass, copy the picture on page 
35. List the eight planets in your book accord- 
ing to size and according to distance from the 
Sun. Find out by referring to a book on myth- 
ology or to a dictionary what each planet's 
name stands for. 

3. Do you know that the Earth is really far- 
ther away from the Sun in summer — that is 
when we have summer in the northern hemi- 
sphere, than in the winter? I think your book 
explains the cause of the seasons very clearly 
but it is sometimes hard to understand what we 
do not see. 

Another week we shall probably have our 
Uranisphere in working order and then I shall 
ask you to make a drawing of the Earth going 
around the Sun. 



CHILDREN'S UNIVERSITY SCHOOL 145 

4. Why did astronomers think there should 
be a planet between the first four planets, Mer- 
cury, Venus, Earth and Mars, and the last four, 
Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus and Neptune? Using 
a compass, draw eight circles around the Sun, 
properly spaced of course, to show the orbits 
of the eight planets. Don't forget to leave a 
space for the asteroids. 

5. Try to understand what is meant by ^^ den- 
sity '^ and ^^mass^' as the two words are used in 
your book. Compare the weight of the lead ore 
in the Museum with that of the iron ore. Why 
does the Earth pull the lead ore more than it 
pulls the iron? 

6. The rest of the chapter tells us how the 
planets were born from their parent, the Sun. 
What do you mean by nebula? How is a nebula 
different from a body like the Earth? If it 
were of the same size as the Earth, would it 
weigh more? If it weighed as much as the 
Earth would it be of the same size? 

Second Week. 

We read ^'Four Small Worlds" and wrote 
a story about Mars. We wrote why we think 
there are people on Mars. 

Third WeeJc. 

We read ^^What the Stars are Made of" and 
^'Restless Stars." ''What the Stars are Made 
of" tells about the spectroscope. ^^ Restless 
Stars" tells us how we can teU whether the 
stars are going towards us or away from us. 



146 THE DALTON LABORATORY PLAN 

Fourth Week. 

We read ^^ The Color of the Stars" and ^^ Star 
Clusters and Nebulae." We painted a picture 
of the spectrum of Sirius. We also made this 
assignment. 

ASSIGNMENT IN MATHEMATICS 

One Month 

First Week. 

Since you have chosen Astronomy for your 
assignment this month, you will be interested in 
finding out all you can about the sun, moon, 
stf^r^ ^Tiri p?i rt M 

1. We are told that the Sun is about 93,000,000 
miles from the Earth and Venus is 2,300,000 
miles from the Earth. How much nearer is 
Venus than the Sun? 

2. If the Earth moves around the Sun in 1 
year, and Mercury moves around the Sun in 88 
days, how many times will Mercury move 
around the Sun while our Earth is moving 
around the Sun once ? 

3. If Mercury is V17 as large as our Earth, 
how many Mercuries would it take to make a 
volume equal to that of our Earth? 

4. It takes Saturn 29^ years to revolve 
around the Sun. How much longer does it take 
than for our Earth to move around the Sun? 

5. The Earth in its annual journey around 
the Sun moves about 68,000 miles an hour. How 
far does it move in a day or 24 hours? 



CHILDREN'S UNIVERSITY SCHOOL 147 

6. The Sun is 93,000,000 miles from the Earth. 
Light travels this distance in about 8 minutes. 
How fast does light travel? 

Second Week. 

1. The planet Mars' year is 686 of our days. 
How many of our years is it? 

2. Venus' year is 224 of our days. What part 
of our year is it? 

3. From the information I have already given 
you in the first week, can you find how far our 
Earth travels in one second? 

4. Which of the following planets has the 
greatest diameter? 

Neptune 35,000 miles 

Saturn 70,000 '' 

Jupiter 85,000 " 

Venus 7,700 " 

Mercury 3,000 " 

(a) How much larger is the diameter of 
Saturn than that of Venus ? 

(b) How much larger is the diameter of 
Venus than that of Mercury? 

(c) How many times will the diameter of the 
Sun, which is 865,000 miles, contain the diam- 
eter of Mercury? 

5. Come to me for some drill work. 

Third Week. 

1. A Siderial Day is the time it takes the 
Earth to make one complete revolution on its 
axis. 



148 THE DALTON LABORATORY PLAN 

There are 366.24 siderial days in a year and 
365.24 ordinary days. How many days differ- 
ence would there be in 10 years, in 65 years, in 
39 years? How many hours' difference, how 
many minutes, and how many seconds? 

2. If a clock is to keep siderial time, it must 
be regulated to gain 24 hours a year. How 
many minutes a day is this? How many 
seconds a day is it? 

3. In the ^^ Orion'' group you will find Sirius. 
To the South of it is Canopus, which is the most 
brilliant star of Arge, the ship in which Jason 
sailed away in search of the Golden Fleece. If 
Canopus is 10,000 times more brilliant than the 
Sun, and Sirius is 40 times more brilliant than 
the Sun, How much lighter than Sirius is Can- 
opus? 

4. You will notice in ^^ Astronomy from a 
Dipper'' that the best months to study the 
*^ Great Bear" are from January to July if you 
look at them at 9 o'clock. If you look at 11 
o'clock you can study them one month earlier. 
During what month could you study them if 
you look at them at 1 o'clock, at 3 o'clock? 

5. Come to me for more drill. 

Fourth Week. 

1. What would be the distance from the Sun 
of a planet which is 105 times as far away as 
the Earth? 

2. If it required 14 hours for light to pass 
from the Sun to a planet at that distance, how 
far would light travel in 1 minute? 



CHILDREN'S UNIVERSITY SCHOOL 149 

3. If Saturn in its year has 23,000 days and 
nights, how many times as many as our earth 
has it? 

4. If Taurus is conspicuous in the Eastern 
evening sky from September until the end of 
December, how many days is it visible ? 

5. From January until May it may be seen 
in the evening, high up in the sky, a little far- 
ther West each evening, then it disappears. 
How long is it before it disappears ? 

6. (a) If Mercury, which is nearest the Sun, 
is 36 million miles away, how much nearer is it 
than the Earth? 

(b) Light travels from Mercury to us in 
about 4 minutes. How far is that per minute? 

7. How many years ago were recorded obser- 
vations made of Mars if they were first made 
in 272 B.C.? 

ASSIGNMENT IN GBAMMAR AND COMPOSITION 

One Month 
First Week. 

Make lists of the words you have added to 
your vocabulary from the reading of the story 
of the ' ' Winged Horses. ' ' Put the nouns in one 
list, the adjectives in another, the adverbs in a 
third list and the verbs in a fourth. 

Imagine that after Bellerphon marries the 
King's daughter, he tells her the story of his 
slaying the Chimaera. Write the story as he 
might have told it. Use the best words you can. 
Make an outline first. 



150 THE DALTON LABORATORY PLAN 

Second Week. 

Dramatize the story of Perseus and Andro- 
meda or imagine Perseus 's little grandson tell- 
ing the story of his grandfather's exploits to 
some of his friends. Write out the story as he 
might tell it. You will find an outline helpful. 

Third Week. 

This week, let us make a study of some w^ords 
from your reading. Be sure that you know the 
meanings. Then put all the nouns in one col- 
umn, the verbs in another and the adjectives 
and adverbs in two other columns. In order 
that you may see how the word is used I have 
put the number of the page on which each oc- 
curs. (The list included 32 new words.) 

Fourth Week. 

If you have not dramatized one of the other 
stories dramatize the story of Theseus and 
Ariadne, or, beginning with the second para- 
graph on page 188, ^'The Stars and Their 
Stories,'' write another ending for the story. 
Make us see what you tell us. 

ASSIGNMENT IN READING 

One Month 

First Week. 

One of the books we shall use this month is 
called ^^ Stars and Their Stories.'' You will 
find some very interesting stories in it ; the pic- 



CHILDREN'S UNIVERSITY SCHOOL 151 

tures and the charts will help you understand 
what you read, and help you find the stars too. 

Read pages 3-40. Get a copy of Hawthorne's 
*^ Wonder Book^' and read the whole story. 
Find on page 7 the Latin name for ' ' The Two 
Bears'' ; on page 14 find four other names for 
the *^ Great Bear"; on page 15 find another 
name for the ^^ Little Dipper"; another name 
for the North Star. What are the ^^ Pointers"? 
If you can not find these constellations, get 
somebody to help you. 

What is the most exciting part of the story 
of the Chimaera? Are there other parts of the 
story almost as exciting? What other adjec- 
tives besides ^^ exciting" might you use? Did 
you like the way the story ended? 

Make a list of the pages that have good de- 
scriptions. Discuss them with me. If you were 
an artist, could you make some good pictures 
from the descriptions? 

Did you understand Longfellow's poem ^^ Pe- 
gasus in Pound"? 

Second Week. 

Eead pages 60-82 in ^^ Stars and Their 
Stories." 

Do you think Perseus as brave as Bellero- 
phon? Make an outline of the story and learn 
to tell it to your group. Use some of the new 
words you have learned. Make your picture 
clear. If you do not know how to make an out- 
line, come to me. Tell the story to me before 
you tell it to your group. 



152 THE DALTON LABORATORY PLAN 

Third Week. 

This week, you will read about three constel- 
lations that belong to the Orion group. They 
are: Orion, Sirius, and Taurus. Perhaps it 
is not too late to find them in the sky. Winter 
is the best time for seeing them. Look at the 
charts and pictures on pages 84 and 85. Now 
turn to page 97 ; what interesting facts do you 
find about Betelgeuse and Eigel? On page 99, 
you will find some interesting facts about Sirius 
and Canopus. 

Perhaps you have heard of the Pleiades, or of 
the Seven Sisters. On pages 98 and 99 you will 
read about them. 

Now, read the story of Orion, pages 87-97. Is 
the story as exciting as the story of Perseus? 
Did the ending of the story please you? 

On pages 100-101 there is something about 
Astrology. Eead it and talk it over with me. 

Do you understand the poems on pages 101- 
107? 

Fourth Week. 

This last week we have some wonderful 
stories to read. You will find them in *^ Stars 
and Their Stories,'' pages 157-192. 

Since I have given you questions about all 
your other readings, I shall give no questions 
about this assignment. I shall let you come to 
me and show me what the reading has meant to 
you. 



CHILDREN'S UNIVERSITY SCHOOL 153 

ASSIGNMENT IN HISTOBY 

One Month 

We are going to study the History of Astron- 
omy by learning about the great astronomers 
through the ages and what they did. Astron- 
omy is probably the oldest science in the world 
and was studied long before other sciences were 
heard of. Some of the Greek philosophers that 
we have read about were very learned in 
Astronomy. 

Let us keep a notebook on the History of 
Astronomy. In this notebook let us enter the 
names of the great astronomers, the dates when 
they lived and what each one found out and 
added to the knowledge that w^as already re- 
corded on the subject. Let us have one page 
for each great astronomer. Put his name at 
the top and the dates when he lived. Then be- 
low put down what the astronomer found out 
about the Earth, the stars, the planets, etc. We 
shall begin with the Greeks and come down to 
the present time. 

The book to use is called ^* Stories of the 
Great Astronomers.'^ You will have to use the 
table of contents and will have to read a good 
deal of the book to find out all the names. (The 
finding and writing about two astronomers will 
be one day's work.) I suggest that you write 
out what you find on paper first and show it to 
me. Then we can make what changes are neces- 



154 THE DALTON LABORATORY PLAN 

sary, before it is put into the notebook. Let us 
try to have our notebooks so neat and clear that 
they will be very useful later as reference books 
on astronomy. Perhaps you can draw plans 
and pictures to illustrate the discoveries of the 
astronomers. 



CHAPTER VIII 

The Need for an Improved Education 

The Dalton Laboratory Plan is particularly 
significant at present, because parents and 
teachers are feeling that children graduate 
from onr schools without the training and char- 
acter qualities that are necessary for a success- 
ful life. Many of them are doing something 
about it. They, at least, give an analysis of the 
failure of the present educational system to edu- 
cate. Many who will not admit these analyses 
admit the failure. They explain this failure 
from their own temperamental slant on things. 
The explanations are as numerous as tempera- 
ments are numerous. 

For some, schools fail because education is 
not as it used to be. We coddle the child and 
lap him in frills and fancies instead of devoting 
ourselves to the four essentials: Beading, 
Writing, Arithmetic and the Big Stick. *^If it 

155 



156 THE DALTON LABORATORY PLAN 

was good enough for me, it is good enough for 
my children. '^ 

To others the trouble is that things are just 
as they used to be. If their education was clas- 
sical: ^^What can you expect from a system 
dominated by our colleges, where the classical 
tradition largely prevails?'^ 

If they worked hard and left school young: 
^^What can you expect in a country where laws 
do not compel children to stay in school until 
they have learned a useful trade?'' 

If they got good marks: ^^ Memory is the 
only thing that counts. I happen to have an 
excellent memory, so of course . . . etc.'' 

If they got poor marks: ^'No attention is 
paid to the individual. I was an exceptional 
child, dreamy, always writing stories. No one 
appreciated me." 

Some teachers keep this strong, personal 
slant on education. They are apt to start 
schools from the fullness of their hearts. The 
chief aim, often unconscious, is to avoid doing 
to other children the things that were done to 
them. The result is often an excellent school, 
where little children are safe and happy. We 
can not help wondering at the faith of the ini- 



NEED FOR AN IMPROVED EDUCATION 157 

tiator that what might have been good for her 
will be good for all children. The correction of 
a single misfit seems a limited basis for a thing 
as complicated as bringing up children. But it 
is a kindly human limitation after all. It makes 
sure that the school will be interested in each 
pupil. 

Such schools are rather shocking to many 
people because they present a new set of limi- 
tations. But are they any less suited to the 
business of education than most of our big suc- 
cessful systems, public or private? How long 
would a railroad last, if its president said : ^ ^ Oh 
yes, wooden cars are unsafe. But we can't 
change them. All our cars are wooden' '? There 
is a principal of a school who says: ^^Yes, of 
course we have outgrown the old ways, but we 
can't change them. We must pin to them until 
something is worked out to take their place." 
Such modesty might be a virtue in a school girl, 
but in the head of a school the kindest name that 
can be given it is caution. Why not demand 
that teachers themselves do a little of this work- 
ing out, at least while we are waiting? A few 
years ago there was a system where the super- 
intendent boasted that by looking at his desk 



158 THE DALTON LABORATORY PLAN 

clock he could tell what every child in town was 
doing. But it was in one of his schools that a 
pupil said : ' ' Oh, mother, now I know what yon 
mean when you tell me to concentrate. I have 
learned how. You know I don't like my new 
teacher. Well, now she can talk all day and I 
never hear a word she says.^' 

Before you laugh at the crazy ideas you 
astutely discover in some of the so-called new 
schools, suppose you make a list of some of the 
ideas in the old ones. They are none the less 
crazy because you have grown used to them. 
The '^mere parent,'' can choose as well as the 
educational expert. To help you sift the chaff 
from the wheat, answer these questions. What 
is education? What do my children do in 
school? What is a lesson for? Do children 
exist for lessons in this school, or is the school 
for the children? If you have answered them 
honestly, you are ready to choose between the 
old and the new according to your lights. 

Are there any general, impersonal facts that 
stand out from this struggle between the old 
and the new to convince us that our dissatisfac- 
tion with schools is more than a tempest in a 
tea-pot? Decidedly, yes. Three great factors 



NEED FOR AN IMPROVED EDUCATION 159 

in modern civilization require changing schools 
if they are to survive. They have nothing to do 
with educational theories. The man on the 
street, the slum child, the farmer is more af- / 
fected by them than the university professor, 
hence perhaps the slowness in changing schools. 
They are the increase in scientific knowledge, 
the resulting industrial system, and a demo- 
cratic form of government. 

The first has made specialization necessary. 
It used to be possible for a single individual to 
learn about all there was to know in his corner 
of the world. All that was known could be 
pretty well compressed in a few books. By 
earnest and continuous reading it was possible 
to master it. It was the sort of abstract and 
speculative knowledge that could be grasped by 
reading. The discovery of scientific laws has 
revolutionized the world. Keep a child reading 
and reading from the first grade through col- 
lege, as we do, and he has only scratched the 
surface of knowledge. 

There are so many facts, and each individual 
needs such a different set of facts, that it is 
folly for schools to attempt to teach children all 
the things they may need to know. But the 



160 THE DALTON LABORATORY PLAN 

majority of schools are still doing this. And 
the facts they teach are the sort that were pop\i- 
lar in the middle ages ; the name of the highest 
mountain in South America, and the names and 
reigns of the kings of England. You are fond 
of those facts because you learned them your- 
self. But, honestly, how much do you think they 
have to do with education? Did you get that 
general understanding which is the foundation 
of your intelligent attitude towards your job 
and your life from them? How much did school 
help you in acquiring it? Not very much, you 
say, you got it from experience. 

So schools are not experience, or at least their 
curricula are not. They are magic doses from a 
mediaeval prescription. They are the continu- 
ation of a method unsuited to the subject-matter 
of today. Suppose we tried to supply the 
world's present demand for cloth by hand 
looms. It would not be much more impossible 
than trying to educate by teaching facts. Edu- 
cation today must consist in learning to learn; 
finding out about knowledge and what it is for, 
so it can be acquired and used when it is needed. 
This means that a child must know how to read. 
Reading is not merely pronouncing words ; it is 



NEED FOR AN IMPROVED EDUCATION 161 

using books. He must know how to write. 
Writing is saying something, as well as guiding 
a pen. He must know how to figure, not so that 
he can tell the teacher when train A will meet 
train B, but so that he can buy a loaf of bread, 
or find out low long it will take him to walk the 
five miles to the lake. It means, too, that he 
must know something about his own physical 
and social environment ; physics, chemistry, bi- 
ology, fundamentals of industry, and social re- 
lations both political and historical. He can not 
get this by memorizing a few samples in a text- 
book. What he can get is the knowledge that 
such sciences exist; that they explain his own 
world, the things he wears and eats and passes 
in the streets, and the habits of his friends and 
relations. He can get control of the intellectual 
methods that have enabled society to pile up 
this vast classification and explanation of things 
and ideas. It is only as children, all children, 
get this that the fruits of knowledge can serve 
everyone. 

Machines, and so the industrial system, are 
the direct result of scientific discoveries. They 
have multiplied the needs of man by supplying 
them. They have infinitely complicated the proc- 



162 THE DALTON LABORATORY PLAN 

ess of supplying them, taking mannfactnring 
out of homes and concentrating it in factories. 
When it was carried on at home, children had 
opportunities to supplement the magic facts of 
text-books by real work. Processes were simple 
so that they understood what they saw and what 
they did. Compare, for instance, the educa- 
tional value of the weaving industry as carried 
on in a New England home and a visit to a 
modern cotton factory. And how few children 
today ever have a chance to visit a factory ! 

What does a child, today, have to give him 
the understanding of his world that came frona 
helping in the endless activities that went on 
in every home a hundred years ago? A little, 
if he live on a farm; nothing whatever, if he 
live in a city slum. But schools still go on as 
if the old conditions prevailed. They have done 
nothing to supply the real experiences that he 
got out of school, when each home or community 
was a self-supporting unit. The manual train- 
ing and domestic science introduced in the up- 
per grades of most schools are an obscure reali- 
zation of the need. But much of their value 
is lost, because work in the two subjects has 



NEED FOR AN IMPROVED EDUCATION 163 

been distorted into text-book form; into a list 
of facts. 

It is an educational axiom that children can 
not know what they have never experienced. 
Examine the curriculum of the average school 
and then get the rest of the daily life of children 
in a crowded city. There is almost nothing in 
these children's experience to prepare them for 
the world they will plunge into when they begin 
earning a living. 

But, you say, schools can not really be so un- 
suited to the process of growing up. They have 
been going on like this while men were dis- 
covering scientific laws, inventing machines and 
reorganizing society. What education such men 
had they got in schools. This is not strictly 
true. Leaders are not a typical product of edu- 
cation under any conditions. A streak of genius 
lifts them above the common run of men. They 
find experience and turn it to account in things 
at hand, no matter how meager their environ- 
ment. Nevertheless, the majority of leaders 
come from a social strata with a varied and 
leisured environment. Not the least advantage 
of being born not poor is the opportunity it 
offers for getting real experience in childhood. 



164 THE DALTON LABORATORY PLAN 

The success of an educational system should be 
judged by the ability of people to live intelli- 
gently who had no useful environment or ex- 
perience except school ; not by the well being of 
people whose daily life would have equipped 
them with the tools of learning and the experi- 
ence to understand their world without school. 
Schools must be judged by such a standard, 
if our ideas of social justice or democratic gov- 
ernment are to be any more than an abstract 
conception. Any democratic organization of so- 
ciety depends on the ability of every individual 
to participate. The conception grew up because 
of every man's sense of his own individuality. 
It can succeed only to the extent that each man 
or woman's individuality finds expression. 
Educationally, individualism and democracy 
are not opposed. They are the same thing. We 
have not made good citizens when we have 
taught every child to read and write and salute 
the flag. That is not education, but a gilded 
ignorance that leaves undeveloped leadership, 
independence, and initiative, all the qualities 
that are necessary in a democratic society. An 
educated person is one who has had a chance 
to learn as much as his natural capacity allows, 



NEED FOR AN IMPROVED EDUCATION 165 

and thinks honestly along the lines of his own 
temperament and personality, understanding 
his physical and social environment. Such char- 
acters do not spring into existence with man- 
hood. They develop gradually from the day the 
individual is born. It is the school's business 
to let them develop and to see that they develop 
so that they are a constructive force in society, 
not a dead weight or a destructive misfit. 

What part does the Dalton Laboratory Plan 
play in the reorganization of schools to meet 
these needs? 

It offers a scheme for a material rearrange- 
ment of schools that permits the powers and 
abilities of the individual pupil to develop. 
Therefore, it can be used as a device to enable 
an old curriculum to function as efficiently as 
possible or as a convenient organization for 
radical departures from the conventional way. 

Many educators, especially those in super- 
visory and administrative positions, feel that 
much can be done to eliminate misfits and waste 
by adjusting so that the individual masters the 
usual subjects as well and as rapidly as pos- 
sible. This type of readjustment aims to meet 
^ two criticisms of public schools : graduates have 



166 THE DALTON LABORATORY PLAN 

not learned the common branches well enough 
to succeed in simple business positions, and so 
many years are spent on this part of education 
that young men and women can not finish their 
professional training early enough. 

It is possible to use the Dalton Plan as a 
remedy for both these tendencies. It has been 
pretty well established that individual study is 
the best way to gain control of the tools of 
knowledge. Drill in reading, spelling, composi- 
tion and arithmetic, once right habits are estab- 
lished, should be an individual matter where the 
pupil works only on his difficulties. This method 
can be used in the usual class-room, but the ad- 
justment between the bright and slow pupils is 
always a problem. With free study and assign- 
ments this takes care of itself. The good speller 
wastes no time repeating words he knows. He 
reviews the assignment making sure he knows 
the lessons and goes on with another subject. 
The poor speller can take the necessary time to 
really learn the words mthout feeling hurried 
or tempted to hide behind the better pupils. It 
is not suggested that the Laboratory Plan alone 
is a permanent solution of this difficulty. The 
discovery of better teaching methods and the 



NEED FOR AN IMPROVED EDUCATION 167 

most essential subject matter in the common 
branches is equally necessary. 

The second objection, that too much time is 
spent in acquiring a half mastery of these tools, 
requires even more searching investigation of 
the essentials of education for its ultimate solu- 
tion. But, meanwhile, the plan can be used as 
a time-saving device where that seems desir- 
able. It has been suggested that it would be 
possible to use the laboratories and assignments 
without trying to keep a class together. Where 
the course of study is divided into monthly con- 
tracts, a pupil could advance as rapidly as he 
is able to do the work. A rapid worker can 
often finish the contracts in all his studies in 
less than four weeks. Instead of giving him 
supplementary reading of special reports, he 
could be given the contracts for the following 
month ^s work, thus doing eleven or more 
months' work in the ten months of the school 
year. In this way, some pupils could save a 
year or more of the time usually spent in pre- 
paratory school. Some such use of the plan is 
undoubtedly desirable in special cases where, 
for some chance reason, a child is in a low grade 
for his years or is behind in some one subject. 



168 THE DALTON LABORATORY PLAN 

But it seems unwise to advocate adopting the 
plan in this form for a whole school population. 
Ignoring the problems of the social phases of 
school life that would arise, administrative diffi- 
culties would almost surely bring bad results. 
If every child in a school were starting syllabi 
of one-tenth of the year's curriculum at any 
time he was ready for it, the courses of study 
would have to be committed to paper down to 
the last detail. The teacher would be so occu- 
pied with examining, recording and starting new 
assigTiments that she would have little oppor- 
tunity for the real business of teaching. It 
would be practically impossible to get group 
reactions to courses of study, or to turn the at- 
tention to anything but the machinery for ad- 
vancing pupils through the prescribed syllabi. 
The machinery would defeat the aim of the 
plan: that of freeing the school organization 
to make it possible to meet the needs of the 
individual. It would seem a mistake to attempt 
to meet problems that come, admittedly, from 
the curriculum by concentrating on its admin- 
istration alone. 

Experience with the plan seems to indicate 
that its real contribution to educational prob- 



NEED FOR AN IMPROVED EDUCATION 160 

lems will be along the lines of facilitating cnrric- 
ulum changes. The freeing process for both 
teacher and pupil it accomplishes will help clar- 
ify the difficulties in our present system. If the 
plan ultimately enables children to read, write 
and figure better than they learn to do now, it 
will be because it puts the responsibility for 
effort on the child, developing an intelligent, re- 
sourceful method of attack that will give a better 
product. If it proves to be a method for short- 
ening the years in preparatory schools, it will 
not be because it permits a pupil to get through 
a fixed syllabi more quickly, but because of the 
liberation of the individual's abilities that en- 
ables him to profit more from every experience. 
That is, the mental habits and character quali- 
ties that are apparently fostered by the plan 
will force the elimination of the trivial, and the 
alteration of curricula to include the things that 
are most essential. 

School organization plans for individual 
study and subject promotion are often criticized 
by the leaders in progressive education on the 
grounds that they tend toward a fixed depart- 
mentalization and so interfere with building up 
a school where children can lead a real and com- 



170 THE DALTON LABORATORY PLAN 

plete life. There is no doubt that, if the Dalton 
Laboratory Plan is regarded simply as an effi- 
ciency measure, an opportunity to help pupils 
learn the facts of a fixed course of study more 
thoroughly and perhaps save a year or two of 
their school life, this might result. 

But the plan appears to have a contribution 
for the school that is interested in a more com- 
plete reorganization to meet the three needs 
of modern society outlined above. In such 
schools, the aim is not to help the children get 
through a certain amount of classified informa- 
tion but to have them get control of their own 
powers and the tools of learning through using 
them in a school life that explains the real 
world. Obviously, this requires a carefully set- 
up environment and sufficient drill to insure the 
efficient use of tools. This environment will be 
classified in terms that seem best to present the 
desired type experiences to children. With the 
laboratory plan the subject rooms and assign- 
ments can be set up in these terms. The con- 
tract will not be assignments in five academic 
subjects, but two or three large topics for study. 
This study will require work in a general science 
laboratory, in the library, in the carpenter shop 



NEED FOR AN IMPROVED EDUCATION 171 

and studio as well as composition, arithmetic 
and geography. The whole project can be 
planned by the staff of teachers cooperating to 
insure a proper proportion between the sub- 
jects and opportunities for the necessary drill. 
This would be the pupils^ contract. Then by 
consultation with individual teachers, the class 
could fill in the details of their contracts ; what 
portions of the work will be done in each labora- 
tory. As a child needs special advice or equip- 
ment, he will go to the appropriate laboratory. 
In this way, all written work will be exercises 
in English, composition and penmanship, as well 
as having value in its content. Arithmetic, that 
is done in connection with cooking or geog- 
raphy, will be done under the supervision of 
the mathematics teacher and so will be advanc- 
ing the pupil in his control of that tool and at 
the same time have an immediate end. 

Many schools have organized the curriculum 
on this basis. They have had to change the con- 
ventional idea of subjects and the usual man- 
agement of the time schedule to meet conditions 
of productive work. A number have already de- 
veloped an organization similar to the Dalton 
Plan for tlueir shop, cooking or art work. These 



172 THE DALTON LABORATORY PLAN 

subjects are not taught at certain fixed times, 
but the pupil uses the resources of the teacher 
and the laboratory as he needs to sew, cook, do 
wood work or use art principles and technique 
for the larger topic. The experiment of includ- 
ing other subjects in the category of work-shops 
would facilitate some of the difficulties of the 
project method. The school librarian is avail- 
able at any hour of the day the child needs to 
consult reference books or select reading. Why 
not have the English teacher available when- 
ever the class is actually writing a story, a geog- 
raphy report or a science paper? The divi- 
sions to be made in the curriculum and the limi- 
tations of the method will be fixed by the needs 
and condition of the particular school. 

Complete experiences, individual work and 
scope for interests are essentials in both the 
Dalton Plan and the ^^ project method,'' when 
either is explained in theoretical terms. If these 
essentials are made concrete with the needs of 
childhood in mind, there should be no conflict 
between the two methods. Neither will stand 
the test of time, unless it is adjusted to meet 
particular situations and new needs. The diffi- 
culty is often an inability to separate education 



NEED FOR AN IMPROVED EDUCATION 173 

from our conception of what schools must be. 
The project method has freed itself from one 
side of this conception, the school of classified 
and isolated facts. The Dalton Plan frees itself 
from the other half, the school of piecemeal as- 
signments, bells and herd learning and recita- 
tions. One contributes a new subject matter to 
meet the needs of modern life; the other a way 
to give children working conditions that accord 
with the discoveries of modern psychology. All 
such experiments furnish the stuff from 
which new schools that shall truly educate all 
our children will be built. 



\J 



1 



